


Halfway

by RedTeamShark



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alcoholism, Assisted Self Harm, Background Relationship: Vax/Keyleth, Background/Future Relationship: Percy/Vex, Biphobia, Child Abuse: Emotional, Depression, Drinking, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Forced Addiction, Gen, Homophobia, Painkilllers, Parent Death, Parent/Child Incest (Discussed not Depicted), Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Relationships, Racism (Implied), Recovery, Recreational Drug Use, Rehabilitation, Self-Harm, Sibling Death, Smoking, Suicide Attempt (Discussed not Depicted), suicide idealation, undiagnosed mental illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-07-18 07:36:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 31,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16113821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedTeamShark/pseuds/RedTeamShark
Summary: You have survived worse.Vax didn't have a problem, but his sister thought he did. So he promised her he'd get better and when it became clear he wouldn't keep that promise, she called their dad and got him sent to rehab. Whitestone wasn't the worst place he'd ever been. And he definitely wasn't the most screwed-up person there.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I did way too little research on this fic because honestly every time I decided to do some research it just made me depressed and despite the subject matter and many, many warnings smacked on this thing, this story IS meant to be sort of uplifting and hopeful. So if the complete lack of knowledge about drug addiction and rehab that I'm about to display is going to bother you, you may want to just skip this story entirely.  
> If a tale about people finding ways to help themselves and each other sounds like your jam, though, welcome aboard.  
> Certain chapters will contain much heavier material and I'll make sure to note those chapters/instances and provide a summary at the end of the chapter.

He had sort of expected it.

There were only so many concerned looks Vex could give him out of the corner of her eye before he started seeing them. Only so many frowns and half-started questions before he knew what she wanted.

So he took some of Keyleth’s anxiety meds when he was feeling like a mess, just to numb up for a while. So he smoked a little (a lot) of weed with her. So he’d come home black out drunk and throwing up every weekend this month and a few weekdays. So he chain smoked between classes and on his work break.

It was college. Everyone did it.

“I think you have a problem, Vax.”

He didn’t let himself get defensive. He didn’t let himself get angry.

“I’m worried about you.”

He sat on the living room couch with his hands between his knees and his eyes searching the faces around the room. His sister, her friends, a counselor from the university, someone from health services.

“It’s not healthy.”

He picked at his nails and met his sister’s even gaze and waited for this to be over.

“I want you to get the help you need, brother.”

Vax exhaled slowly, feeling his fingers shake. Fuck, he wished he’d taken some of Keyleth’s pills before he’d come home. Mixing her prescription with weed usually killed the worst of the headache, even if it made the nightmares worse.

“Vax, listen to me.”

“I’m listening.”

Vex stood up, joined him on the couch and brushed his hair back behind his ear lightly. She held his hands in hers and squeezes his trembling fingers. “I want you to go to a rehab program--”

“I don’t need--”

“--and if you won’t…” Her eyes cut away for a moment, looking for back-up. “If you won’t go, I’m calling Dad and having him force it.”

He sucked in a breath, yanked his hands free of her and pulled back, defensive, attentive. “Vex’ahlia, I love you, but if you call that _bastard_ because I smoke a bit of weed now and then, I’ll… I’ll…”

“When’s the last time you were clean, brother?”

He counted backwards. It was fuzzy after a week, gone after ten days. Still, it’d just been a hard month, with finals and work being hectic and… “I’m sober right now.”

Vex’s gaze stayed on him, worried but immobile. He wrapped his arms around himself, looked at the others in the room. Their gazes felt judgemental suddenly. Like they knew… too much about him. “Don’t call him, Vex. Please.”

“Will you check yourself into a rehab program?”

It was hard to lie to his sister. Hard, but not impossible. “Yes. Tomorrow. I promise.”

With an effort, he escaped to his room. Shut the door against their judgements and leaned against it, his breathing hard. He fumbled the crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket, opened the window and lit his incense before lighting up. A cigarette would stop his hands from shaking.

Late at night, after everyone had left, after his sister had wished him a quiet good night at his closed door, Vax threw together a few things and climbed out the window. He drove over to Keyleth’s place and she let him in with a tight smile, told him that she didn’t have any pills or weed left. Finals season had gotten to her, too.

Vax didn’t need drugs, he told himself (a harder lie to tell than to Vex, even). He just needed a place to sleep for a couple of nights. A person to sleep with wouldn’t hurt, either.

It took less than a day for Vex to find him at Keyleth’s, her words firm, her knuckles white as she gripped the steering wheel of their car and drove him--not home, not their little apartment. He swallowed as they got on the freeway on ramp, rolled down the window and lit another cigarette.

Back to their father’s place. Back to the looks of disappointment he always gave them. Well, at least there was something to actually be disappointed in this time.


	2. Chapter 2

It could have almost been a dorm room, if he ignored the fine metal grating over the windows and the fact that the door had no lock from the inside. Two beds, two dressers, two desks, two chairs. A door on the right that he guessed led to the bathroom. Vax dropped his bag onto the unmade bed on the left and followed it down.

They’d searched him when he’d been processed in, taken away his cigarettes, his lighter, and his pocket knife. He felt twitchy without the first two, bare without the third. His hands needed something to do.

Fingers ran between the edge of the mattress and the wall, found the bed frame pressed tight to the cinderblock. Well, that might work… Curling up around his stuffed duffle bag, he felt along the seam of it.

They’d missed the razor blade he hid there forever ago, when he’d packed it as a go bag in case he needed to disappear. Deft fingers pulled it free, slipped it between the bed and the wall. Perfect hiding sp--

“They search there.”

The voice made him start, hissing as he yanked away from his blade with a fresh cut on his finger. Vax stuck his bleeding digit in his mouth and rolled over, trying to pretend like his heart wasn’t pounding. “What?”

“They pull the beds out from the wall and search there. So whatever you hid, whatever you snuck into Whitestone, I _really_ suggest finding a better place for it. Like the front desk.” The figure leaned on the opposite bed, his arms crossed. “Contraband gets everyone in the room punished and I’m not interested in some asshole who thinks he can get away with things ruining my good record.”

“You’re gonna rat me out if I don’t?” He sat up slowly, looked his apparent room mate up and down. His age, most likely. Glasses, white-blond hair, dark circles under his eyes and a haughty, chin-up look that he recognized from far too many people in high school. Great. He was rooming with a prick who probably had too much money to _not_ get into drugs. He’d probably driven while high and killed someone, used daddy’s money to get rehab instead of jail.

Vax knew the type.

“No, but I will be rather annoyed with you, and that’s not really a good way to start your time here. So… hand it over when they come in. Make life easier for yourself.”

He snorted, pushing his hair behind his ear. Fuck, he wanted a cigarette. It’d stop his hands from shaking, maybe. “I think I’ll take my chances.”

“Suit yourself… Is this your first trip through?”

“Yep.” He popped the ‘p’ sound, brought his finger back to his mouth and bit open the small cut his razorblade had left.

“Great… So, when the DTs start turning into nightmares, scream into your pillow. I’m cranky in the mornings, and getting woken up by someone freaking out just makes it worse.” The man crossed the room, held out a hand with a faint smile. He almost looked human like that. “I’m Percival Fredrickstein von Mussel Klossowski de Rolo III. You can call me Percy.”

A slow hand raised to shake the offered one, eyes meeting for a moment. “Right, Freddie.” Close enough. “Call me Vax. So… what’s your vice?”

“Painkillers of all varieties. You?” The nickname didn’t seem to faze him. Vax wondered if he’d misread this guy. Then again, with a name like that he practically screamed ‘old money.’

“My family thinks I drink too much. And smoke too much weed. And that I shouldn’t be taking my friend’s anxiety meds with that.” He shrugged. “I mean, I’ve been meaning to kick the nicotine habit once life stops being so stressful.”

“Oh, you’re going to be a fun one…” Percival von whatever, now Freddie, shook his head and stepped away, dropped onto the bed across the small room. “Welcome to Whitestone, Vax.”

* * *

Someone tossed the room while he was off meeting his counsellor. His room mate laid back on the bed, tossing a stress ball up and down idly. The sheets were no longer perfect on his bed, but he didn’t seem to care.

“Good job, we’re on garbage duty for the rest of the week because you didn’t put away your clothes when you got here.” The ball stopped being tossed, was squeezed instead.

“That all?”

“Yes…” The careful answer spoke volumes and he dumped his clothes off the bed, worked to make it up with sheets and blankets.

“Were you here?” He stuffed the flat pillows into pillow cases, tossed them onto the bed before going to sort through his mess of clothes. Jeans and shirts, mostly. Plain socks, plain underwear. Two pairs of shoes. There were laundry facilities on site and it wasn’t like he was in a _prison_. He could wear his own clothes, at least.

“Came back from counseling just as they were leaving. Dinner’s in an hour, they’ll probably come back to see if you’re complying yet while we’re there.” The steady rhythm of the stress ball being tossed resumed. “They briefed you on all of this when you came in.”

“And I spent all of that discussion wanting a smoke. If they wanted me to pay attention, they should have let me smoke.” He heard a snort of laughter behind him, a small indication that this guy _maybe_ didn’t have a stick crammed the entire way up his ass.

Silence fell over them as Vax put away his clothes and other small items. His counselor had given him a journal and told him to track his thoughts at least once a day with it, preferably between dinner and bed. There was a template on the left page, blank space on the right side. He skimmed the template, making a face. The date. His current mood. One good thing that had happened during the day. One message for a person he cared about. One positive message he’d like to give himself.

Percy stood up and left the room, the door swinging shut behind him. Vax glanced over his shoulder, sitting down and grabbing a pen from the cup on the desk, starting to fill in the blank spots. Date and mood were easy. He was feeling frustrated.

Even the message for a person he cared about wasn’t too hard, a short note to Vex that he missed her already. They were twins, they were practically inseparable, being without her through this process was going to be hell.

A positive message he could give himself wasn’t terribly hard, either. Vax tapped the pen, before writing firmly, in block capitals, _You have survived worse._

That led him back to the skipped line. One good thing… He thought about it, head tilting back, before writing down. _I met someone more fucked up than I am._

He closed the journal and tucked it into one of the desk drawers, leaving the room without a look over his shoulder. This was going to be his personal hell for the next month or so, he might as well learn his way around.

Whitestone was a massive old building that looked like a prison in the way all buildings from a certain era sort of did. There was a central area with check in, a lounge, small visitor alcoves, and the cafeteria. A second floor lounge for patients to mingle together--under strict supervision, of course. At the back was a spacious lawn with walkways and trees, the near serenity only interrupted by the high chain link fence with barbed wire at the top.

The west wing was for those who had checked themselves in voluntarily. Individual rooms, no metal grating over the windows.

He was in the east wing, where the involuntary check-ins stayed.

Each of those had a closed-off area labeled Medical, solid doors locked with key card access to the side. The person at the duty desk raised an eyebrow, asked if he needed assistance, and Vax quickly hurried away.

The entire third floor was administration and counseling, small offices for individual sessions and larger spaces for group meetings. He’d been up there already, had a short introductory session with his counselor. His first group therapy would be in the morning.

For the time being, his stomach rumbled. Dinner. Then garbage duty. He should probably find Percy, find out what that entailed. Figure out if there was any way to get out of it.


	3. Chapter 3

Individual counseling hadn’t been all-together terrible. His counselor, a man named Shaun Gilmore, smiled a bit too much to seem sincere, but he hadn’t been unbearable by any stretch. Hell, Vax even thought he was kind of hot, not that he could act on that. There’d been a small recording device on the desk between them, but he hadn’t been pressured into answering out loud if he didn’t want to. And most of the questions had been fairly standard things about himself. They’d barely even talked about what he was using or how much or how often.

The only real ‘therapy stuff’ they’d done was related to the journal, Gilmore handing it over near the end of the session and explaining what he would like Vax to do with it.

Group therapy was… a lot more intimidating.

Vax followed Percy up to the third floor, holding the journal his room mate had suggested he bring under one arm. It made for good conversation, according to been-there, done-that Master Percival, if he didn’t have anything else he wanted to contribute. Just flip open the book and read from the last entry.

They were settling into chairs in the small room when Vax remembered what he’d actually written the previous evening. Probably best not to read the part about meeting someone more fucked up than he was, when he’d met all of two people the previous day.

The group of five settled in, a blonde woman with a clipboard taking the chair at the head of their small table. She smiled, tucked her hair back behind her ear with a pencil, and nodded to them. “We have a new member of our group with us today, so I think it’s best to begin with introductions. Who would--Scanlan, of course.”

One of the others at the table stood, took a theatrical bow and beamed a smile. “My name is Scanlan Shorthalt. Pleasure to meet you.” He sat down again, scrubbed one hand across his mouth, and nudged the man next to him.

“Right, um… Grog Strongjaw. Hi.” Even sitting, the man was massive, his upper body hulking over the table.

“We’ve already met, but I’m Percival Fred--”

“Freddie, right,” Vax interrupted, his gaze darting around the group. “I, uh… I’m Vax. Just Vax.”

The woman at the head of the table nodded to him. “And I’m Dr. Pike Trickfoot, but really, everyone just calls me Pike. Well, now…” She passed out a sheet of paper and a pencil to each of them, her words calm and steady. “Since Vax is newly joining us, I’ll go over the rules quickly. We mostly just talk here. About how we’re feeling, or things that have us worried, or things that have been good. We don’t interrupt each other,” a pointed look first to Scanlan and then to Vax, “but if you think of something to say while someone else is talking, you can write it down.” Scanlan’s pencil was already moving across his paper. “Or if something someone says… makes you start thinking, you can write that down and not share it. Any questions?”

Percy raised his pencil slightly and Pike nodded to him. “She collects the papers after each session, puts them in our files. But that’s why you can erase things.”

Pike beamed, sitting back and folding her hands on the table. “Absolutely true, Percy. So… Who would like to start today’s session? Anyone have anything good to share?”

Vax tapped his pencil against the paper as things began around him, barely listening. Scanlan was talking about someone named Kaylie… His eyes tracked to his left, to Percy studiously bent over his paper and scribbling away with his pencil. A drawing, mostly, with some words around the edges, written far too small for him to see. The drawing itself was eyebrow-raising, more of a schematic than anything else.

He snapped back to attention at the realization that silence had taken over, glanced around with warming cheeks to see if he’d zoned out and had been asked a question. The other two were looking at Pike as she tapped a pencil to the corner of her mouth.

“I think… That you should write back to her. Tell her what you’ve told us, about how you’re changing, about how thinking about her motivates that change. Being honest about your faults is never easy, but it opens up communication more clearly than pretending to be perfect. And with a letter, you can choose your words carefully, give your exact meaning without having to talk in circles or be interrupted.” She smiled, jotted something down on her clipboard. “I’ll even help you write it, if you want.”

“I… I think I’d like that, yeah.” Scanlan’s pencil moved across his paper, his focus narrowed down on it.

“Well, anyone else have anything to share?” A beat of silence except the scratches of pencils on paper. Pike turned to him. “Vax? How are you adjusting to Whitestone?”

“It’s…” He thought on it, head tilting back slightly. There was a pounding headache creeping up on him, the feeling that usually came with coming down from Keyleth’s pills. A cigarette would take care of that. This wasn’t quite a hangover headache, it throbbed at the base of his skull instead of in the center of his forehead. “Different, than I expected,” he finally answered, darting glances around the table. “But I guess it’s nice? The, uh, the food’s good.”

To his left there was a snort of laughter, a brief headshake. Pike nodded, released him from her softly imploring gaze and turned to Grog. Her blue eyes were suddenly bright with mirth. “Did you see the NHL draft picks?”

They were off, rapid-fire conversation that, after about two minutes, Vax realized was about sports. He looked down at his paper rather than try to keep up with a subject he had no knowledge about, tapping his pencil lightly. It’d hit him in the morning, as he got dressed. There were almost no clocks here. One above the desk at the end of the hall. One at check in. There was obviously some sort of structure to the day, they’d gone down to breakfast while food was being served, come up to group therapy right after without being late, but…

It’d been almost twenty-four hours since he’d had a cigarette and his hands were shaking.

It’d been three days since he’d been high and his head was pounding.

The culmination hit him like a truck and Vax shoved back from the table, bolted from the therapy room. He didn’t know where a bathroom was on this floor, but he saw a trash can at the end of the hall. Heard a raised voice behind him and Pike’s gentle tone grow sharp.

Well, at least he made it to the trash can before losing his breakfast.

Someone patted his back as he leaned over the trash can, body trembling, cold shocks wracking him like someone had dumped ice water on him. Fingers carded his hair back and Vax leaned into them, his eyes closed, one hand wiping across his mouth. “Fuck.”

“Here.” Something chilly pressed to his hand and he cracked an eye open, took the bottle of water and took a large gulp. Swished that in his mouth, spat it into the trash, and then took another drink. “Come on, Vax, let’s get you to medical. Guys, that’s enough for today.” Pike’s voice guided him away from the trash can, down the hallway and a flight of stairs.

He started to feel borderline human again as he settled into a bed, aware enough to hiss at the sting of a needle poking into his arm. Someone held his free hand and patted it sympathetically, spoke low words he couldn’t understand in a tone that at least made him feel better.

It was like being sick as a kid, Vax thought as he drifted away. Having his sister there to hold his hand until he felt better.

* * *

They wouldn’t even give him a fucking aspirin for the headache. Vax dragged himself up to Gilmore’s office from medical with his eyes squinted almost shut against the light, his head throbbing with every step. He’d barely slept, alternatingly plagued by nausea and nightmares. Just the thought of food had his stomach cramping painfully, but he’d managed to keep a cup of coffee down so far.

He dropped into the chair in Gilmore’s office with a groan, burying his head in his hands. “So is killing me part of your recovery process?”

“Withdrawal is a monster, I’m aware.” At least the man across the desk spoke with some sympathy. Papers shuffled across the desk, space clearing. “Did you bring your journal?”

“Shit. Forgot.” He just wanted to lie down. Preferably while stoned enough not to feel anything.

“That’s fine, you can bring it next time. Have you been writing in it?” Vax wiggled a hand noncommittally. He hadn’t last night, had just crawled into bed after medical had released him to his room. “When you’re feeling better, I’d like you to commit to at least a little time with it every day. Self reflection is key to recovery.”

“When I can look at stuff without my head wanting to explode, you bet.” A weak thumbs up accompanied the words, his fingers shaking. He wanted a fucking cigarette.

“My sympathies. Medical won’t allow you to have anything for that except rehydration.” A desk drawer slid open, the familiar sound of a pill bottle rattling around. Vax’s head shot up. “But… I can offer something that may assist. Just don’t rat me out.”

Gilmore shook two small white pills into his hand from the unlabeled bottle, passed them over with a wink. Vax popped both into his mouth, bit down on them and grimaced in preparation for the surge of bitterness that came with pain pills. Nothing. No bitterness, no flavor. He stared across the desk, his eyebrows drawn together. “Those are sugar pills, aren’t they?”

“Pixie dust, fairy feathers, good vibes. They still might make you feel better.”

“You’re a monster.”

Gilmore laughed gently, sitting back. “No, Vax’ildan, I’m here to help chase the monsters away. You’ll survive this and you’ll be a stronger person for it.” The silence spun out between them as Vax struggled to feel anything like human. Finally, Gilmore moved papers again and cleared his throat. “How did group go yesterday?”

“Fine? Fine. I, uh… left early.” More silence, one shaking hand pushing hair back from his face. “Pike’s nice.”

“Dr. Trickfoot is one of our best. Have you been in touch with your family and friends since you arrived?”

He groaned, shaking his head quickly. “I doubt they want to hear from me.”

Gilmore’s voice was softer, his words more earnest. “You’re here because they care about you very much, Vax. I’m sure they’d be happy to receive a phone call or to come visit.”

Happy, right. Keyleth might like to know he wasn’t dead. He guessed his sister would feign enthusiasm for him getting clean. Like hell he was calling anyone else. Or inviting them to come see him like this. “Maybe I’ll call Kiki tonight. Fuck, what day is it? Tuesday? I don’t think she has work…”

"It's an important step in the process to find your support system, people who will help you keep yourself from falling back into old habits. People like your counselors here... but there are people in your life from before that will also help, if you ask them. Your family, your friends... It's important to reflect on them, on your relationships with them, before you choose them as a member of your support system." Gilmore folded his hands on his desk, his face serious. "As much as it pains any of us to acknowledge, there are people we befriend when we're struggling who want us to keep struggling along with them. You have to choose to swim for shore, rather than drown with them, metaphorically."

“How many parts does recovery have? So far you’ve mentioned self reflection and support systems and… ugh, probably some other stuff?” Vax dropped his head into his hands again, trying to ease the pounding headache that the office’s low light was giving him. Swim for shore rather than drown with them. His party 'friends,' the people he got wasted and high with, he could drop easily. Hell, they'd drop  _him_ once they learned he had cleaned up. Vex was a given, she was the one that wanted him here in the first place. And other than that... Keyleth. He could feel the implication in Gilmore's words, even around the pounding headache. Was he supposed to just let her drown? Or could he find a raft for her? That metaphor was confusing.

“It’s different for everyone. But… it’s about learning to love yourself. Finding your own self value in who you are without drugs. Some people can do it purely on their own, which is fine for them, but most people need some outside influence to tell them that they have worth and value in the world no matter what. Family, friends, lovers…” He opened a drawer, taking out a picture and sliding it across the desk. “I wouldn’t even be alive if it weren’t for my husband, you know.”

Vax looked up at the picture slowly, reaching out and taking it, looking over the two men in it. The one was obviously Gilmore, beaming brightly at the camera with reddened cheeks as the other man kissed his temple. The background was out of focus, but he recognized the bright colors and the patches on the men’s clothes for what they were--a snapshot taken at a Pride parade. “You don’t keep this on your desk? It’s a good picture.”

“Makes some people uncomfortable. It does make others comfortable, though.” He took the picture back, slipping it into the drawer again. “My point is, the people who love you will help you through this and be with you on the other side. Just… think about that before you start looking for an external support network.”

* * *

_The people who love you will help you through this and be with you on the other side._

Vax mulled the words over that afternoon, sitting down at his desk with his journal and attempting to ignore the low-grade nausea that was still keeping him from eating anything substantial. He filled in the date, tapped his pen lightly against _mood_ for a moment before writing down _confused_ and moving on.

A good thing that had happened that day still had him stumped, skipped over for the time being.

A message for someone he cared about… Vax inhaled and exhaled slowly, beginning to write.

 _Kiki, you know I love you. And if I weren’t so fucked up maybe I could be_ **_in love_** _with you. I want to try it one day, you know? I want to try giving my whole self to a person who doesn’t_ **_have to_** _give back._

_But I’m scared._

He pressed a hand against his closed eyes for a minute, telling himself that the burning was another part of the ever-pounding headache, before moving on to a positive message to himself.

 _Some of the people here_ _**do** _ _understand this. Not everyone’s full of shit._

He reread the message twice, tried to cement the mindset into his brain, before going back to a good thing about the day. A day that had started with waking in a cold sweat under the glow of the sinking moon. A day that had started with choking down black coffee and feeling his stomach raise a cry right on the edge of total revolt before begrudgingly settling down.

A day where he’d been denied even standard, boring aspirin for his shrieking headache.

His pen scratched on the paper almost without thought. _Nothing good happened today._

A day when…

A day when Gilmore offered up a secret part of himself in exchange for nothing. More than one secret part, really. He’d said _husband_ , but Vax sure as hell didn’t see a wedding ring on his counselor. His pen moved again, one long line followed by more words.

 ~~ _Nothing good happened today_~~ _I learned I wasn’t alone. Again._

He closed the journal with finality, slipped it into the drawer and headed down to the common room. There were banks of phones there, small private cubbies where calls could be made. Monitored, of course, but it still offered a degree of privacy. This wasn’t _prison_ , he had to keep reminding himself.

Vax checked his contact list at the front desk, sighed with relief to see that Keyleth’s number was on there. He wrote it on a scrap of paper and crossed to the phones, took a seat in a corner and dialed with a hand that he told himself didn’t shake.

One ring, two, three… Maybe she had work. Or maybe she just didn’t want to talk to him, or--

“Hello?”

Relief surged through him, stronger than he’d ever thought he’d feel to hear someone’s voice. Someone’s familiar, comfortable voice. Vax’s throat almost closed and he exhaled slowly, ground the heel of his hand against his eye for a moment. “H… hey, Kiki.”

“Vax?”

“Mmhmm.”

Silence, her light breathing through the line. He pulled his knees up to his chest on the small chair, a waiting room chair definitely not designed to be sat in like that.

“Vax, are you… I mean… What Vex said…”

“Whitestone Rehab, yeah. She, uh… couldn’t convince me to come willingly.” He forced a laugh, tried to ease some of the worry out of her voice. _Fuck_ it was good to hear a familiar voice again. “But hey, I’m here now and… and I think that if this doesn’t make me kill myself, it might actually be good for me.”

“ _Don’t joke about that._ ” He didn’t expect the intensity in her voice, pulled the phone away from his ear to stare at it for a second, before pulling it back, hearing the rest of Keyleth’s tirade. “--what I’d do without you what _Vex_ would do without you don’t you _ever_ make a joke about that again Vax or I swear I’ll--”

“Keyleth.”

“ _What._ ”

Vax inhaled slowly, forced himself not to say the first thing that the venom in her words prompted. He couldn’t be cruel in the face of her worry. “I’m sorry.”

Her voice was small, unsure when she spoke again. “I’m worried about you.”

“Hey, hey hey hey. Don’t worry about me, okay? This is, you know, getting better… Being a better me. It’s some real _28 Days Later_ stuff.”

“That’s a zombie movie.”

“What’s the Sandra Bullock rehab one?” He laughed into the phone, glad to hear some of the tension leave Keyleth’s voice. He really hadn’t meant to upset her, hadn’t thought that his sense of humor--usually borderline fatalistic anyways--wouldn’t fly when he was in a place like this.

“That’s _28 Days_. Let me know if you start breaking out into musical numbers.” She laughed into the phone and his heart picked up, his mind painting the picture. Keyleth in her apartment, maybe cooking dinner, maybe watering the absolutely obnoxious number of houseplants she kept. Holding her phone between her shoulder and her ear, leaning on a table or counter with one hand and laughing. Gorgeous in the evening light, fiery red hair turned into a blazing inferno by the sinking sun.

“I’m supposed to look for a support system. People in my life that will help me find my value as a person without, you know, a bunch of drugs.”

“Mm… so Vex?”

“So…” So Keyleth. So Keyleth with her soft hands and sweet smiles and… and her tremors and breakdowns and piles and piles of pills that kept those things at bay. Assigned to her by a doctor. Taken far more often than the little orange bottles said they should be. “So Vex, yeah.”

What sort of support would Keyleth provide? Keyleth with her smiles and sunshine would be someone to look forward to. But Keyleth in the middle of a breakdown, Keyleth on her sixth night of screaming nightmares where the only way she could sleep was if she smoked pot and fell unconscious in his arms… Vax hated himself a little more for how fast that Keyleth would drag him back down.

“I miss you…” She whispered into the phone, the words barely an exhale.

“Hey, none of that… I miss you, too. I’ll be back soon, and… and you can come visit. Maybe come up with Vex.”

Keyleth’s silence was so long Vax almost thought the call dropped. When she spoke again, her voice was low, almost inaudible over the phone line. “I don’t want to go back to a hospital. Sorry.”

“No, it… it’s okay. I understand.” He looked up at the clock over the front desk, cursing under his breath. “Shit, Kiki, I better go. It’s almost dinner time and after that I have chores. But hey, I’ll call you again soon, okay? I should tell you about my roommate.”

“Mmhmm. I’ll talk to you soon, Vax.”

Fuck, he hated hearing the worry in her voice. The sound of fear, of underlying panic. He hoped she’d been sleeping okay. He hoped he hadn’t fucked up whatever good day she might have been having. Whatever good week… “Hey, Kiki?”

She’d already hung up.

Vax put the phone aside, wrapping his arms around his knees and staring at the desk in front of him. The scrap of paper with her phone number on it. “Love you.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a lot of the warnings from the tags: Alcoholism; discussed but not depicted parent/child incest (non-graphic); discussed self harm; suicide idealization; discussed racism; forced addiction.
> 
> Pretty much all of these are discussed by the characters that have experience with them, not depicted outright.

Pike tapped her pen lightly against her clipboard, looking at the four men at the table. Silence had fallen over the group, no one having much to say that morning. Vax held his head up with one hand, trying to keep any sort of focus. He just wanted to sleep… The withdrawal had shifted, his pounding headache finally receding and insomnia taking its place. He’d spent most of the night staring at the ceiling and listening to Percy snore lightly in the other bed, one hand crammed between the wall and the mattress, touching the razorblade still hidden there, letting it bite into his skin without breaking it. A little pain. A little punishment.

“Well… since we’ve run out of conversations to have, perhaps we should revisit some old ones. See how our perspectives have changed. We’ll go around the table and talk about why we’re here, what problems led us to Whitestone, what solutions we’re hoping to find.” She smiled, tucking hair behind her ear. “Would anyone like to start?”

Quiet around the table, people shifting in place. Pencils weren’t moving on paper, the group counseling session unproductive.

“Okay, then I’ll start.” Her cheerful attitude couldn’t quite be beaten down by the unresponsive nature of her patients. “My parents were killed by a drunk driver when I was eleven. I moved in with my Uncle Wilhand and…” She bit the cap of her pen, sighing. “And dealt with a lot of anger. With a lot of blame. I hated everyone for a while. The courts sent the man who killed my parents to a rehab facility and all I could think was that he would get to go home and start it all over again. Take someone else’s family away.

“Until I got a letter from him. A letter expressing… expressing what looked like true regret. Explaining that he was in a dark place and that he knew his actions had put me in a dark place, too. He didn’t ask for forgiveness, or understanding, but… I understood. I ended up going to the facility, talking with the staff, visiting him… It changed my perspective on the whole situation. He was no longer my parents murderer, getting off completely free, but… someone with a darkness inside him that he was fighting to overcome.” Pike blew out a breath, looking around the table. Half of them had heard this story at least once before, but Vax and Scanlan’s eyes were locked on her face. “I decided to go into rehab counseling after that. To help other people overcome the darkness inside them. And Whitestone… Whitestone is a good fit.”

The table remained silent for a moment, everyone’s eyes down before Grog looked up, clearing his throat. “Right, so… I come from a big family of… of drinkers. We get together and we drink, it’s what the Strongjaw family _does_. When my old man caught me stealin’ a can of beer from the fridge when I was fourteen, he was only mad that I was taking _his_ beer. And I mean… it was _gross,_ but he took my allowance money and bought me a six-pack of my own and I sat out there on the porch and drank with ‘im and it was… It was like the first time he’d seen me as a man. No one asked about it when the family’d get together and I’d have a beer or two or… lots. I wasn’t even in high school yet and I was wakin’ up and goin’ to school hungover.” He scrubbed a hand against his face, laughing. “No wonder m’grades were so bad. I’d never been bright anyways, but that sure didn’t help.

“By the end of high school I was drinkin’ two, three six-packs a week… More, if family came over. We’d kill two cases of beer in a night if my uncle and cousin were over. It wasn’t ‘til… well, it wasn’t ‘til I met you, Pike, that I realized that wasn’t how it was s’posed to be. I wasn’t goin’ to college, a’course, but I got a job with my uncle’s company, doing roofin’ work in the family business. We’d show up to jobs hungover or drunk, go each buy a six or a twelve after work and drink’em at home. I wasn’t even old enough t’buy my own yet, I’d sit in the car while my dad went in and got me mine. And then one day we were workin’ a roof job and this nice lady comes home from work and sees me stumblin’ around up there and she just…” He laughed, shaking his head. “She told me to get down a’fore I fell off and got myself a broken neck. Sent all of us home in a cab and her and her uncle who we were doin’ the work for followed us in our trucks. Little itty bitty Miss-- _Doctor_ \--Pike Trickfoot, bossin’ around a bunch of big, drunk roofers like we was toddlers. Next day we went back sober and she had our contract pay for what we’d done and cards for this rehab place… We tossed’em, of course, but… I kep’ mine. I kept lookin’ at it, wonderin’ if there was really somethin’ more than what I’d always known. So one day I call and I talk to someone and I tell’em what I’m thinkin’ and ask if there’s a little doctor named Pike here and they say yeah and come on in and talk to us. I had to practically sneak outta the house, knew my family wouldn’t understand, but…” He shrugged, smiled broadly. “I kinda like it here. I like doin’ things the way you say they can be done, Pike, stead’a the way I’ve always done’em.”

“And I’m glad you’re here, Grog.” She beamed, patting his arm lightly. “You’ve been sober for six weeks now, you know.”

“Gets easier ev’ry day…”

“Wait, wait…” Vax held up a hand, staring at Grog. He was huge, built, had an impressive beard and a bald-shaved head, tattoos on his bare scalp. “How old _are_ you, big man?”

“Twenty. Why?”

“You’re fucking younger than me?! I figured you were… I don’t know, thirty-five? Forty?”

“Well, guess you ain’t so smart then, scrawny.”

“Sheesh, if he thinks you’re forty, he probably thinks I’m sixty-nine…” Scanlan muttered, his mouth curling into a smirk. “How old do you think Pike is, Vax?”

Vax turned to her, holding his breath for a moment. “Um…”

“It’s okay, Vax. No one ever guesses right. I’m a hundred and forty-two.”

That got all of them laughing, the mood lightening up slightly.

“Well, I guess I can tell my story next… It’s a bit shorter.” Scanlan blew out a breath, sitting back and tapping his pencil on his paper. “I drank way too much, too. Hard stuff. A real party scene… I was heading to being found dead somewhere, fast. Part of a band, up and coming type stuff… ‘Up and coming’ for ten, fifteen years, our big break just around the corner… Time flies when you do the same things every night. I never thought I had a problem, I thought I had it all under control. Until… Until one night, after the show, there’s this girl there… This _girl_. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen--I mean, logically of course but even dressed up and dolled up she _looked_ too young. And she asked me if I wanted to, you know, get to know each other and I asked how old she was because I’m not an idiot and she said twenty-one so…

“So we took some wine and went to my hotel room and as soon as that door shut behind her things changed. It was… I mean it was a physical slap in the face, too, but it was an emotional slap in the face. Her name’s Kaylie and she’s my daughter and I tried to _sleep_ with her, fifteen years old getting hit on by her _dad_.” He shuddered, making a face. “I’d slept with her mother years ago, a one night stand when we were both barely eighteen, never saw her again, never knew a kid came from it. And that night, after Kaylie left, after everything she’d yelled at me and accused me of--most of it true--I spent a long time just… staring at myself in the mirror. Asking myself if I was really the person my daughter saw me as, if I really wanted to _be_ that person… and deciding that yes, I was, but no, I didn’t. It took a little more time, a lot more mistakes, before I realized that I couldn’t change alone. That if I wanted to be someone who could be there for Kaylie, to be the father that she deserved, I needed help. So… Here I came and here I am and I’m three weeks into a four week program and I just… I just might make it out on the other side as a changed man. I don’t know if I’ll be _better_ , but I’ll be _different_ and that’s enough of a start.”

Vax glanced at Percy, who had been almost dead quiet during the entire conversation. Now one hand slid into his bleach blonde hair, his eyes closing as he spoke. “You or me?”

Fingers tapped on the table, his breathing slow and even. “Flip for it, Freddie?”

“Sure.”

Pike produced a coin from her pocket, looking between them. “Okay, since Vax is new, he calls it in the air. Winner goes first.” She flipped the coin up expertly, all of them watching it turn through the air, reach its peak, and begin to fall.

“Tails.”

She landed it flat on the back of her hand, slowly lifted her other palm from it to show the tails side to them. Vax exhaled slowly, sitting back in his chair and looking at the ceiling. “Fuck.”

“Take your time, Vax.”

Where to start… Where to start… “I never really… Thought I had a problem. I mean, I have problems but they’re not based on what I’m drinking or smoking or taking, they’re all… Look, my dad? He’s never given a _shit_ about me or my sister. He knocked up our mom and left, left her alone to raise us with nothing until it was convenient to show up with a court order saying that she wasn’t adequate to raise us when we were thirteen. Took us halfway across the fucking country and put us in a private school where everyone, _every single fucking person_ , turned their noses up at us. Classmates, teachers, all of them. He didn’t _want_ us, but he knew it was better to keep us somewhere he could control us than… I don’t know, risk word of his illegitimate children impacting his little political career. And we tried… _so fucking hard_ to be who he wanted for so long… We buried parts of ourselves that we knew he didn’t like. I…” He pulled up the sleeve of his shirt, showed the tattoos on the inside of his wrist. Three daggers across the skin, outlines that circled the scars, old and new, slashed into him. “You know, maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference because it’s always been kind of the… the thought that one day I’ll just do it, but other times it feels like I wouldn’t be so _fucked up_ if he actually tried to treat me like a person and not some constant disappointment.” He exhaled heavily, pushing his shirt sleeve back down. “Right. So college. We made it out, we went to college a good distance away. It worked for him and it worked for us and my sister and I got an apartment together and we started to make it on our own, without him fucking controlling everything we did. I was _happy_ , even. We met people who didn’t think we were awful or disgusting or worthless, people who understood us… People like Keyleth, who found me one day in the middle of a panic attack about something and offered a solution. She’s had anxiety since forever and she has all these pills for it… So she gave me some, just to help calm my nerves, and it was _great_. And she said…” He laughed weakly, shaking his head. “She said that whenever they started giving her nightmares, she’d just smoke some weed and her brain would--direct quote--’like, totally chill out.’ Opposite for me, putting it with weed got rid of the headaches but gave me nightmares.

“It was… easy after that. I was already smoking cigarettes, I was already drinking. Weed now and then, a dose of her pills if things really got too hard… I didn’t even notice that it got out of control, apparently. Not until Vex started to get worried about me. Started to… to start asking me questions. And then one day I guess she realized that she was going to risk losing me no matter what she did. She asked me to come here, you know, check myself in voluntarily. And I told her I would before I ran away like the fucking coward I am. So then she brought me back to our dad’s and he signed the paperwork and here I am. Twenty-fucking-three and he can still get me involuntarily forced into rehab because I’m on his insurance. How’s that for bullshit?”

Pike was looking at him, her brows drawn together. “Do you feel better, now that you’re here?”

Vax snorted, shaking his head quickly. “No. Gilmore keeps going on about steps in the process, and every day making me stronger, but really? I don’t see how anyone sits here and feels _good_ about it.” His fingers itched for a blade to hold, his skin screaming for pain. Punish himself for being so weak, so worthless, so…

“It takes time, Vax. You can’t expect results overnight. But you _are_ getting better, I promise.”

He at least did her the courtesy of not laughing in her face at that one. Better. Right. He’d told Keyleth that was the goal on the phone, but that… that had just been to make up for joking about killing himself. Right? Yeah. He wasn’t getting better, he was getting closer to the edge that he’d been dancing on for years.

“I think…” Percy spoke carefully, looking down at his paper. “I think the worst problems are the ones that don’t _start_ as problems. They start as… as necessary steps. You _need_ it, whatever it is, and then you _want_ it and then suddenly it _has_ you and you need it for an entirely different reason. I was fourteen, and bright, and I had a future with responsibilities that I could choose and then one day… all of that was gone. My grandfather, he left everything to my father when he died, the business and the money and just… all of it. And he left his dirty secret for my father to deal with, the daughter he’d disowned for some _stupid_ , petty reason. Except how do you deal with something that you don’t even know about? She’s years older than my father was, the child of my grandfather’s first marriage, the child that killed his first wife in birth. He distanced himself from her so quickly, even as a baby, I almost don’t blame her for hating him… And by the time he met my grandmother, she wasn’t even in his life anymore.

“We never knew, not until afterwards. Not until the accident and the aftermath and the announcement that Delilah and her husband, Sylas, would be taking over the family business. Taking care of Cassandra and I in the wake of this horrible tragedy. The two survivors, the two that…” He took a shaky breath, his eyes still locked on the table. Though somewhat halting, most of his words so far had been monotonous. “I didn’t have my seatbelt on, told myself I didn’t need it in the back seat. I went out the side window when the car rolled, felt the metal crushing around me try to keep me in before it was gone. I didn’t even feel the pain until later, waking up in the hospital… I crawled across broken glass and I found them, my family, bloodied and bleeding and I thought--god help me, I thought they were already dead. Cassandra was screaming in her seat, upside down, frantically trying to unbuckle and get out as the engine whined and the smell of gas began to fill the air. I don’t know how I did it, both of my arms were broken, but I pulled her out of there and away from the car. And then the spark ignited, the engine still running, and…” He pressed his hands over his ears, eyes shut tightly. “I still hear them screaming at night. I wake up and realize that they were _alive_ in there, some of them or all of them, they were _alive_ and I heard them screaming as they burned to death, louder than the flames, louder than the sirens when the ambulances came. I could still hear them screaming when they loaded me into the ambulance… it didn’t stop until they gave me something that put me to sleep.” Percy slowly lowered his hands, looked around the table before taking a breath. “I was in a lot of pain. I needed the pain pills.Two broken arms, a crushed foot, too many lacerations and bruises and abrasions to count. Cassandra was paralyzed from the waist down. Everyone else was dead. Delilah and Sylas took us home from the hospital, eventually, introduced themselves and pretty soon it became clear that their sympathetic looks were all a ruse. That they wanted something more than to become our caring aunt and uncle. I needed the pain pills… and after a while, I just wanted them. It worked out in their favor, didn’t it? Hide me away here, let me lapse every time I was released and send me back again… One less loose end to tie up and Cassandra? What can she do to stand against them? She can’t even stand.” Percy buried his face in his hands, his shoulders trembling. When he looked up again, however, his face was still calm, his eyes still clear. “I think maybe one day I’ll just not go back there. One day they won’t come get me and I’ll just walk out and start my own life. That will be… nice.”

Pike nodded slowly, her pen moving along the paper on her clipboard. “We’re all learning and growing every day. Finding ourselves outside of reactions, outside of the mindsets we were raised with. We find reasons to want to change in others and in ourselves. And embracing those changes… embracing those reasons for changing is what makes us human.” She smiled, shaking her head. “And our fuck-ups along the way. It’s okay if you don’t get all the way there the first time you try. You learn, you grow, and you try again. I think that’s enough for today, guys. Papers to me, please.”

They passed over their papers, mostly blank, before standing, leaving the small meeting room. Pike caught Vax’s arm near the door, her eyes on his face. “Vax, a moment?”

“Uh, sure.” He didn’t like that look, pulled his arm free from her hold and folded his right hand over his left wrist protectively. It was the same look Vex had given him the first time she’d seen blood on his shirtsleeve. He shuffled back to the table, took a seat as Pike perched herself on top of the surface.

“When’s the last time you self harmed?”

Yup. Exactly the same look Vex had given him. “I mean, it’s been… a while. I got the tattoos so that I, y’know, wouldn’t wanna do it anymore. Wouldn’t wanna fuck up the ink.” It sort of worked. He’d moved on to leaving cuts on his legs instead.

“Do you remember what event made you want to do it?”

Easy, he’d gone at himself harder than usual while alone in his room, snubbed out lit cigarettes against his ankles and then dug a knife into the burns, the day Vex asked him to go to rehab. He was just so fucking _weak_ that he couldn’t stop himself and he couldn’t even _admit_ it to her and--He took a breath, gripped the edge of the table to still his shaking hands. “Dunno. I was mad at myself over something, probably.”

“Mm… And do you ever think about suicide?”

Every goddamn day, lately. He shook his head quickly. “No, I--I couldn’t leave Vex like that. I mean, I’m worthless and all, but her, she’s… she’s perfect. Somehow even though she’s so much better than me, she loves me, and it’d break her heart if I was gone forever. We’ve been through hell and we’ve made it as far as we have because we did it together. I’m here ‘cause… ‘cause she asked me to. Even if I ran away, even if they had to force me to come here, I didn’t go where she couldn’t follow. I’ll never go where she can’t follow.”

Pike’s eyes were still on him like Vex’s had been. Not quite believing that it was an accident, or that he was okay, or anything that he said. Vax swallowed, licked his lips and looked away. “I know I’m fucked up and broken, okay?”

“I don’t think you’re fucked up or broken.” She patted his shoulder, squeezed gently. “I think you’re hurt. I think that there’s a darkness that’s been put inside you and when you accept that it isn’t your fault that it’s there, you can work to get rid of it. Do you know what sort of anxiety medication your friend Keyleth takes?”

“Uh… She’s had a couple, but mostly it’s been Xanax. Like I said, she has a prescription because she’s… she’s got real bad anxiety and panic attacks and stuff. They calm her down. And I just… I like to feel numb. It’s better than what usually goes on in my head.”

Her eyebrows were drawn together, concern etched across her face. “Have you ever looked into the effects of combining benzodiazepines like Xanax with alcohol or other drugs? Or for that matter, the side effects of them?”

“No?”

Pike shook her head, sighing. “Talk to Gilmore about it. From what it sounds like… Well, you’re lucky that your sister loves you enough to try to help you. Drugs like that… They’re dangerous if you’re not being monitored and regulated by a doctor. You should encourage your friend Keyleth to ditch the weed, too. It might help her out more than she realizes.” She hopped off the table, gathering up the papers. “Talk to Gilmore, okay? This is a big step forward for you, Vax.”

He stood up, tugging the sleeve of his shirt down again and frowning. “A step forward? How?”

“You’re starting to acknowledge the root of your problems, instead of pretending that they exist in a bubble outside of your life. That’s a good thing.” Pike smiled again, waved him off. “Go on, now. Go outside, okay? Take a nice walk. I know it sounds like vegan nonsense, but sunshine actually _is_ a natural mood booster.”

* * *

He wasn’t sure about the sunshine being a mood booster, but being outside… Well, that _was_ sort of nice. Vax strolled along the grounds, his head down, gaze on one foot in front of the other and mind lost in thoughts. He knew he was fucked up and broken and nothing changed that… Except, when Pike said it didn't have to be that way, it almost sounded true. That he could get better. 

Now if only he could convince the rest of his brain to agree.

“You got the ‘sunshine actually _is_ good for you’ treatment, too, huh?” Percy’s voice beside him made him jump, attention flashing to his room mate. “I didn’t even get my afternoon session with Allura, I just got ‘go take a walk outside, you’re unproductive when you’re like this’.” He snorted, shaking his head. “What’d Pike want from you?”

“Just… to talk.” He shrugged, looking away and stuffing his hands in his pockets. It didn’t feel right to be the one asking questions, but… “When you’re like what?”

“Angry.”

The answer, short and simple, actually drew Vax’s full attention. He turned, looking Percy up and down slowly. Walking stiffly, his hands still at his sides, his face clouded over… His steps were measured carefully to align with Vax’s plodding pace, but he could almost see the urge to just _move_ in the other man. “Well, don’t let me stop you from blowing off some steam.”

“Oh, trust me, you’re not. They won’t let me have my more productive means here. But a walk isn’t… terrible. What did Pike want to talk about?”

“You really don’t let things go, do you, Freddie?” He exhaled slowly, looking up at the sky for a long while. “I’m sure you can guess. The whole cutting thing, what pills I was taking, and then a whole lot of bullshit about how I’m not fucked up or broken.”

“Ah, the anxiety medication for a guy who’s really not anxiety-ridden at all. Yeah. See, at least I started with something that was prescribed to me.”

“Blow it up your ass.”

They exchanged a look before easy laughter took them over, the anger draining from both of them. Vax looked around the grounds, moved off the carefully raked path and onto a patch of grass surrounded by trees. He dropped to the ground, looking over as Percy sat next to him.

“You seem like you have it under control, though. Like you could just drop it any time…” He started, rolling onto his back and looking up through the leaves. “I know you say you keep getting sent back here, but don’t you have to have an actual _problem_ for Whitestone to admit you?”

Percy let out his own slow sigh, sitting down and leaning back on his hands, fingers methodically closing around clumps of grass and relaxing. “Usually, yeah. Unless you have some other means of forcefully admitting a patient, like being on the administration staff. The ‘family business’ that my grandfather started? That’s Whitestone. And Delilah Briarwood, my dearest auntie, is running it now.”

“That… fucking _sucks_.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter with a handful of warnings for things discussed but not depicted. This time we have a lot of self harm/suicide idealization, homophobia/biphobia, and death of a parent.

It shouldn’t have been awkward to see his sister again. They’d barely ever been apart in all their lives, a week without seeing Vex was almost unheard of. And yet as she stood there, biting the string of her necklace and fidgeting with the sleeves of her shirt… Vax felt himself hesitate. He felt himself seeing her, for the first time, as an outsider. A girl who sat with her back straight despite her obvious nerves, her gaze steady on the door he was on just the other side of. He had to look close, family close, to see the lines of exhaustion around her eyes, to know that she wasn’t nearly as put-together as she looked from the outside.

He’d done that, he realized with a stab of guilt. He’d made her look like that, with his fucking problems.

Vax pushed the door open and crossed the common room, enveloped Vex in his arms halfway across as she came to him. They held each other tight, refamiliarized themselves with the feeling of being in each other’s arms. “Fuck,” he whispered into her hair, kissing the top of her head. “Fuck, I hate this.”

Her voice was choked, her face pressed tight to his shoulder so he could feel the tears that he couldn’t see. “It’s better for you. I promise.”

“Being away from you isn’t.”

“Vax…” They pulled back and he held her face, gently brushed the tears from her cheeks. Her hands settled over his, mouth twisting into a weak smile. “You _need_ this, brother.”

“I need _you_.”

“Oh, stop it.” She reached up, pulled him in and kissed his forehead gently. “I need you, too… I need you healthy and alive and _present._ ”

They moved slowly, sat down on chairs near each other, hands still on each other. Vex leaned in, rested her head against his chest as he stroked a hand against her hair. They didn’t need words, rarely actually needed them. Facial expressions, body language, gestures… It was like looking into a mirror, looking at his sister. He understood her just as well as she understood him.

“Vex…”

“Mm?”

He swallowed, took a slow inhale and exhale, sitting back and looking at her. “Thank you. For this. I know I’ve been a shit, I know I don’t deserve your patience, but… I’m so glad you’re my sister.”

She reached up, tucked hair behind his ear gently and nodded. “And I’m glad you’re my brother.” Her fingers on his cheek slapped him lightly. “But you know, you could _call_ me once in a while! I heard Keyleth got a phone call and I get nothing until I come visit?”

Vax laughed, gently smacking her cheek right back. “Yeah, yeah. Hey, listen, I have counseling in a few minutes and Gilmore said to invite you up, but I gotta grab my journal from my room first. Come with me?” He was already standing, taking her arm and leading her into the corridor. It wasn’t prison, no one stopped them, no one patted Vex down. He could hope…

In his shared room, the door shut most of the way, Vax opened his desk drawer and pulled out the journal before turning to his sister. “ _Please_ tell me you brought cigarettes.”

“Vax…”

“I just need a smoke. Nothing bad about that, right?”

Vex puffed out a breath, shifting so her back was to the door, lifting the front of her loose shirt enough to show the pack of cigarettes tucked into the waistband of her pants. “I wasn’t sure if they’d check me before I came in so I tried to hide them. Got asked to empty my pockets and go through a metal detector, but that was all.” She bit her lip, her voice low. “I shouldn’t give them to you.”

Vax moved closer, wrapped one arm around her and kept an eye on the door as she pulled the pack from inside her waistband, passing it to him to carefully tuck into the pocket of his jeans. Less than subtle, maybe, but it wasn’t like they were being watched. “You’re the best sister ever.”

“Don’t get caught.” She flicked his nose, adjusting her shirt as he stepped back. “And if you do, don’t blame me.”

“Have I ever been caught? Don’t answer that.” He grinned, taking her along as he left the room, up the stairs and to Gilmore’s office.

“Ah, the infamous twin sister.” Gilmore beamed at them as they entered the room, nodding to the chairs. “Have a seat, you two, and we’ll get to know each other.”

“I think I already know too much about him, but…” Vex smiled, offering her hand as she took a seat. “Vex’ahlia, the ‘infamous twin sister.’ Everything he’s told you about me is a lie unless it’s good.”

Gilmore laughed heartily at that, sitting back and folding his hands. “Before we start today, I just want to remind you both that this office is a safe place to discuss anything without judgement. And while I’m here to help you, Vax, I’m also a neutral face. It can be difficult to say things to someone you’re close to when those things might hurt them, so if either of you are having trouble with that, you can address those things to me, instead. Fair?”

They both nodded, glancing at each other before looking away. Vex’s hand snuck out across the small space between them, rested lightly on Vax’s arm.

He pulled out his journal, passing it over to Gilmore with a shrug. “I’m doing my best.”

Gilmore barely glanced through it, looking intently only at the two most recent entries. Vax had written one shortly after coming inside from his walk, filled the usually blank space across from the prompts with rough thoughts about everything he’d admitted in group that morning. The most recent entry, written as he waited for word of Vex’s arrival, was shorter, happier. Seeing his sister again was a definite boost after the previous day.

“Pike informed me of what went on during and after group yesterday, but I’d like to hear it from you, as well, Vax. As much or as little as you want to tell.”

He drew his knees up to his chest slowly, wrapping one arm around them and keeping his other down for Vex to touch. There was almost nothing that she didn’t know about him, nothing that he _had to_ hide from her… So he started at the beginning, at being thirteen and happy and having it all yanked out from under him.

High school, where everyone had judged them. Vax could hear Vex’s breath quickening next to him, so much of it so much worse for her. She had _wanted_ those people to like her so badly, had wanted to be included and involved where he’d just shoved them all off as soon as it became clear where their opinions lay.

The worst of it, the days of hazy do-nothing, barely able to drag himself out of bed. The sleepiness and sleeplessness alternating so heavily he was constantly exhausted. The first time he’d cut himself to feel better, taken the hurt inside out on his own skin. The first time Vex had walked into their jack-and-jill bathroom and seen him rinsing blood out of his shirtsleeve. Her hand moved down as he spoke, fingers closing over his scarred wrist, stroking gently against the uneven skin. The things she didn’t know, the late night breakdowns when he’d really considered it, really thought about how easy it would be to just go so deep it didn’t hurt anymore. He could feel her fingers squeezing against his wrist, the silent message that she was glad he was here.

“It was… easier, in college. We were farther away. We had each other. And we told ourselves…” He swallowed, one hand scrubbing impatiently at his watering eyes.

“We told ourselves we’d go home,” Vex finished for him, her voice low. “Back to our mother. We’d use our father’s money to get an education and we’d make something of ourselves and take care of her. And…”

“And then one day we got a phone call. She was… gone…” Vax looked down, forcing himself to breathe evenly. He hadn’t told this part in group. It’d been too hard to even think about for so long… saying it out loud… “Everything we’d wanted, everything that had kept us going… done. Gone. Dead. We didn’t--I didn’t…”

Vex wiped her eyes with her free hand, taking the tissues Gilmore passed over and handing one to Vax as well. “Our father wouldn’t allow us to attend her funeral. Can you imagine that? He locked our credit cards so we couldn’t go.”

“The bastard…. We ended up calling a friend of hers, being there on a phone call to say goodbye… Our own _mother_ and we could do _nothing_.” Silence as they composed themselves, as Gilmore waited.

Eventually, Vax continued. The breakdown he’d been on the verge of for years finally came, over at a classmate’s house working on a project. Away from his sister, suddenly overwhelmed with the dreaded certainty that something was _wrong_ with her. He’d called her and she hadn’t answered and he’d called again, texted, been ready to leave and _run_ back home, find her, know she was okay--Keyleth had gotten him to sit, to drink water, to take a Xanax and wait ten minutes before calling again… and Vex had answered, had been in the shower and was fine, just fine…

It’d been easier after that. Finding ways to keep the thoughts at bay. Numbing up. He already drank more than he probably should, already smoked more than he could afford, already had a taste for weed. College things. The pills on top of that… they worked wonders.

Mostly.

“I hadn’t really been cutting after we got to college. I could be myself, have a girlfriend or a boyfriend or anyone who wanted me back. And we had friends, we had people who were _like_ us, we weren’t weird outsiders who were clearly someone’s dirty secret and who didn’t belong… It was good times. Far enough away from him that we only really _had_ to visit for long weekends and holidays and once we had an apartment that didn’t even come up. Things were good until… I guess it’s always coming down that hurts. Sobering up after a night out, clearing up after being high, feeling the waves of everything that was wrong with me and the world around me come crashing back when Keyleth’s pills wore off… I mean, no shit I started looking for the next high to keep from feeling it, yeah? And if I couldn’t find another one… I don’t use my wrist anymore, I don’t wanna fuck up the tattoos there, but… I’ve got plenty of other skin.” Vax reached down, rolled up the leg of his jeans and rolled down his sock, heard Vex’s gasp as he exposed the scabs and burn marks and scars on his ankles. “Who looks at your ankles, right?”

“Vax…” Vex’s hands were pressed over her mouth, her eyes wide and locked on the self-inflicted injuries on him. They were new and she knew that, layered over older ones. “How long…”

“A while.” He rolled his sock back up and his pants back down, lifting one hand to his mouth to gnaw on a fingernail. “It’s… Keyleth says the pills make her calm, and I believe her. And they make me numb, and that’s nice… until they don’t. Until they start making me think like I did those nights in high school. How much better off everything would be without me. How easy it’d be. You know, they say that it doesn’t even hurt, if you go deep enough, that it--”

“ _Stop it_!” Vex’s words were punctuated by a slap, her palm stinging across his cheek, cutting off his monotonous talk. “Don’t say that, Vax! Don’t say things would be better without you because they _wouldn’t_ be.” She reached for him, pulled him in close and kissed his forehead. “ _I_ wouldn’t be.”

“You know, a safe space does mean no slapping,” Gilmore spoke up for the first time during their story, one eyebrow raised. “Please, try to keep that in mind.”

“Sorry… but Vax. No. Don’t say that you… that you want to…” Vex pulled him in and he leaned into her, closing his eyes.

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot, lately,” he murmured into her shoulder, his arms wrapping around her. “At least when I told Keyleth on the phone, she didn’t slap me.”

“I’m sorry. I just… you get like that and I…” She took a breath, composed herself, turned to Gilmore with Vax still held tight to her. “You’re a neutral face?”

“Of course.”

“I can’t… say it to him. I _want_ to, but… it’s hard. It’s so hard to tell my stupid, amazing brother how much it hurts me to see him hurt. I always feel insincere, I always feel like I’m making his pain about me.” Her hand stroked his hair slowly, ran down his back soothingly. “I know he’s hurting, I know he has been for a long time. And I never knew how to help… I never felt like I could. How do you do it? How do _I_ do it?”

“There’s no magic answer, Vex’ahlia, I’m sorry to say. You be there for him, you hold him like you’re doing now. You remind him of the good things in his life. Friends, family, the little joys of every day living. The little things that get you out of bed in the morning, like…” He glanced at the top drawer in his desk, smiling. “Like your spouse making chocolate chip pancakes and singing off-key with the radio. You find something that’s better than all of the hurt, and you hold onto it. Embrace it on the good days. Covet it on the bad ones.” He sat forward, folding his hands over the desk and peering at the twins. “Vax, have you ever talked to a professional about this before?”

Vax shook his head into Vex’s shoulder. “Campus counselors are just ritalin dispensers and Dad refused to let us be anything but perfect when we lived with him.”

“There’s a lot of things that change about you when you become a teenager. Body chemistry, brain chemistry… Having your world uprooted during it can certainly impact the balance. I’m not saying a direct cause, but it can make otherwise minor mental conditions worse. And having to keep things inside… I’m guessing that being openly bi isn’t something that was, ah, allowed in high school?” Another headshake from Vax. “Suppressing a part of yourself like that, feeling like your own emotions are wrong, your own heart is wrong… Putting all of that hurt inside yourself, eventually it has to come out. Unfortunately, that’s often on yourself in one way or another.”

He looked up, pulled his head from Vex’s shoulder and stared across the neat desk to Gilmore. “What are you saying?”

“You’re a rather serious undiagnosed case of depression and your self-medication put you at such a high suicide risk it really is amazing that you’re here in front of me.”

* * *

It was familiar, which was nice. Lying in the grass outside, his head in his sister’s lap as she played with his hair, braided and unbraided the dark strands, hummed songs their mother used to sing to them. After the counseling session he’d had, Vax needed calm. Needed peaceful. Needed familiar.

“Do you think he’s right?” he asked eventually, opening one eye and looking up at his sister where she sat with her back against a tree. “About the whole depression thing?”

“Well, he is a professional. I’m inclined to believe him…”

Vax breathed slowly, his hands moving up, finding Vex’s and linking with hers. “I just figured almost everyone else was better at hiding it than me.”

She hummed, squeezing his hands gently. Vex’s hand moved down, her thumb rubbing over his left wrist slowly before she lifted it, kissed the tattoos and scars. Better than words between them. More said in a gesture than in an hour of talking.

Neither of them saw the figure approach, their attention on each other. Until he sat down with them, they were oblivious to his presence.

Vax opened one eye, staring at Percy before shutting it again, dismissive. “Vex, this is Freddie, my roommate.”

“It’s a pleasure.” Vex’s cool tone indicated that it was, in fact, _not_ a pleasure. That she wanted to be alone with him and their quiet.

“It’s Percival, actually. Percival Fredrickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III. But Percy works.” He sat near them, almost close enough to be part of the conversation properly, remained quiet when neither twin answered.

Vax slowly opened his eye again, looked from his sister to his roommate. “Freddie, do you smoke?”

“No, never picked up the habit.”

“Then look out for me, will you?” Vax pulled the pack of cigarettes from his pocket without waiting for an answer, carefully drew one out and looked at Vex. “Lighter?”

“I left that in my car, brother. Besides… You won’t need it.”

He frowned, sat up and looked closely at the cigarette in his hand. Rolled piece of paper, rather, no tobacco inside it. Vax unrolled it slowly, looking at the message written in Vex’s small script.

_You’re stronger than this._

He pulled another from the pack, unrolled it to show Keyleth’s slanted scrawl.

_You mean so much to so many people._

Vax flipped through the rest of them, opened each one to find a message written by his sister or Keyleth. He huffed, carefully rolling the papers up and tucking them into his pocket, crushing the empty pack of cigarettes and tossing it aside.

“Vex’ahlia, you’re a monster.” He leaned in, kissing her cheek lightly.

“I know.” She beamed back at him, her arms wrapping around his shoulders again as she turned her gaze on Percy. “So, has he been utterly insufferable?”

“Beyond the pale,” Percy agreed dryly, his eyes still on the twins. “I don’t know how you tolerate him for more than an hour.”

“That’s the magic of twins, Freddie. She has to.” Vax grinned, patting Vex’s arm where it draped over his chest. “Come on, you have a sister, you must know what it’s like to have to tease and torment.”

Percy shrugged, looking away from them. “When we were little, I guess.”

A moment of silence, awkward and tense. Vax glanced at Vex over his shoulder, shrugging lightly. She didn’t know Percy’s story, hell _he_ barely knew the man’s story… If he didn’t want to talk about it, that was fine. Surely there was some other topic or… or something…

Vex had always been more of a people-person anyways. Her head perked up almost immediately as she thought of a topic of conversation, her eyes on Percy. “ _Animorphs_.”

Both of the men were taken aback by the word, giving her equally confused looks. “What?” Percy finally asked, his eyebrows knitting together.

“You were an _Animorphs_ kid,” she stated, matter-of-fact. “Vax was a _Goosebumps_ kid and I was a _Magic Tree House_ kid, but you… Definitely _Animorphs_.”

Vax snorted into his hand, shaking his head. “You were also a _Baby-Sitter’s Club_ kid, Vex, don’t deny your past.”

Comprehension dawned on Percy’s face, before he shook his head. “Close, but you’re off. _Warrior Cats_.”

“Oh my god…” Vex grinned, pushing off her brother and moving closer to Percy. “I haven’t thought about those books in forever! Okay, important question, who was your favorite and know that I _will_ judge you if you say--”

They were off, the easiest conversation Vax had heard in days. He didn’t have anything to contribute to it, he’d tried one of the books once before going back to his own preferences, but listening to Percy and Vex talk, hearing the excitement growing in their voices… He liked it. He settled back on the grass, closed his eyes and let their nonsensical childhood reminiscence take him away.

Not a bad day, all things considered.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Big Bad, this chapter contains a very graphic depiction of self harm and assisted self harm between the second and third line breaks. I've also denoted the beginning with a * and the end with a ^ if you'd like to skip the scene completely. Summary of events will be listed at the end.  
> Please note that the chapter contains aftermath of self-harm after the denoted graphic depiction. The aftermath is not graphic (mentions of bandages and suicide watch).

The stress balls were a great alternative to thinking too much. Percy had seven or eight of them scattered around, and Vax had gradually begun collecting his own. He squeezed one rhythmically as he lay in bed, looking up at the ceiling.

“I think I want another tattoo.”

“Mm?” Barely an acknowledgement from Percy at his desk, but it was enough.

Vax rolled over onto his stomach, wrapping his arm around the pillow and watching his roommate. “Yeah. Keyleth’s got this really neat collar bone set, it’s the words ‘I have passed through fire’ that start as flames and then become ashes. I’m thinking about getting a phrase or something for myself… You know, something that I can remind myself of when it gets too hard.”

Percy hummed in thought, his pen stilling on the paper. “You have any ideas?”

“Not really. I want it to be a little longer, put it down my ribs.”

He snatched up a blank sheet of paper, posing the pen over it. “At group last week, when we were telling our stories, you talked about… burying parts of yourself for your father. What about something like ‘unearth the treasures they want you to bury’?”

Vax frowned, his fingers closing around the stress ball. It wasn’t the worst, but… “More spiteful.”

“Petty. I like it.” Percy tapped the pen on the paper, his eyes narrowing. “‘Make their grave mistakes their final grave’?”

It itched something in his head. Triggered a phrase. Vax rolled off the bed, leaning over Percy’s back and taking the pen from him, writing out on the paper as he spoke. Neat block capitals, the first letter of each word slightly larger than the others. “‘Leave them at the bottom of the grave they dug for you.’ What do you think?”

“Vicious. It seems perfect for you. Do you have any others besides the daggers?”

“Not yet, but there’s a ton that I want. When I was a little kid, I had a really cool snake named Simon and I want to get him all up my arm and over my shoulder. And I saw this design once, like… a caduceus? But it had wings coming off it and the two things wrapped around it were topped with a human skull on one side and one of those plague masks on the other. I’ve been thinking about getting a variation on that with a human spine instead of the staff, with a bird skull at the top and a human skull at the bottom. Right on my shoulder blades. Keyleth and I always talk about getting matching flower tattoos when we’re getting high together but she can never decide which plants are right for me. And… you know, don’t tell her because I’d want it to be a surprise, but I think I’m gonna get something for Vex done. Maybe an arrow pointing at my heart.”

“Sounds like big plans.” Percy raised an eyebrow, turning in his chair and looking Vax over slowly. “I think they’d look good on you.”

“You ever think about getting some ink, Freddie? Maybe…” Vax’s right hand trailed over his shoulder, fingers ghosting along the back of his neck slowly. “Maybe one of those designs where one thing bleeds into the next and takes over all of you.”

He shivered, tilted his head down slightly as fingers slid up into his hair. “I’ve never really thought about it. Never had anything that I wanted to… commemorate on my skin.” He reached out, hesitated just a moment before touching Vax’s wrist, where the daggers rested under his shirt sleeve. “When’d you get these?”

“Eighteenth birthday. Vex and I had been at college for a week and… and I realized that I’d made it, I’d made it out of there alive and I was… hopeful. I wanted to do something to show that I was stronger than all of that. Give myself a reason to keep going.” He turned his wrist, let Percy slide the sleeve up and look at them. The scars under the ink were layered, years of taking out pain on himself. The lines of the tattoos themselves were a little uneven, a little unsteady. Not from lack of effort on the artist’s part. “When I got it, the artist warned me that the scars would mess with the healing process, that it might not look great. I told her that was fine, that it’d be a reminder for me not to make it look worse. I think she understood.”

“They look nice, still.” His thumb brushed over the tattoos, the scars, stroking slowly against the skin. He had to have been able to feel Vax’s pulse under there, slowly beating faster and faster. “Have you thought about getting them colored?”

He had. He’d almost done it when he’d gotten them done in the first place, but… It had been more of a struggle to pronounce what he wanted, barely eighteen and free for the first time. And pretty soon more money went to cigarettes and beer and weed than what it would cost to get them filled in. “I’ve thought about it on and off. One blue, one purple, and one pink. Very me.”

“How so?”

“Those are the colors of the bi pride flag.”

Percy held his wrist up, squinted at it for a moment before nodding. “I think it’d look nice on you. The colors would really stand out,” he decided, finally letting Vax go. “Maybe get that done after you get that phrase on your ribs.”

Vax picked up the paper, carefully folding it up and tucking it into his journal. Two weeks here and while the craving for a high hadn’t lessened much, the irritation and headaches and nightmares and sleeplessness and _problems_ didn’t seem as bad. Gilmore had talked to him about the whole depression thing, had suggested a mix of healthy lifestyle changes and therapy before supplementing antidepressants into it. He was supposed to walk out in the sun for at least twenty minutes every day and Gilmore was working to find him a therapist for when he got out.

That the man had been there before, in so many similar ways, certainly helped. If _he_ could fix a fucked up life, maybe just maybe Vax could, too.

Hope was a weird feeling.

* * *

Snatches of conversations he’d barely listened to kept replaying in his head. That first day at group, when it had all come crashing into him that he was here and he was going to have to change and the sickness and fear that had come with the realization…

_“...With a letter, you can choose your words carefully, give your exact meaning without having to talk in circles or be interrupted.”_

Vax tapped his pencil against the paper, half-listening as Scanlan related the phone call he’d had with his daughter. The progress. He looked like he was actually recovering. Good on him.

“And she’s coming to the picnic next week, she said. I told her that it was okay if she didn’t stay, or if she just wanted to come get some free food and not see me. I’d be here but she could decide to approach. That… That’s fair, yeah?”

“That’s fair,” Pike agreed with a smile, her pen moving across her own paper. “You’re allowing her to choose the boundaries, which is good. Just make sure that you respect them.”

“And I told her that if she didn’t want to talk to me, she could still talk to other people. I think she’d like you, Grog. And you, Pike.”

“Aw, Scanlan, that’s so nice’a you.” The big guy clapped him on the shoulder, beaming. “I ain’t got nobody comin’ to the picnic, so it’d be nice t’have someone to talk with.”

“What’s this picnic?” Vax spoke up, looking among the group.

“Ah… It’s an event we hold once a month… Since most people are here for at least that long, it usually lines up with a stage in the recovery process. A chance for friends and family to come visit in a… somewhat less clinical setting. We set up tables and decorations and music outside, make food and just encourage everyone to have a good time,” Pike explained, pointing to the poster on the wall. “Sometimes we theme them around holidays, like the Gift Giving Gala in the winter or the Fireworks Festival in the summer, but the real key is just to relax and have fun.”

“And you can invite anyone?”

“Within… reason. We really encourage you to invite people from your outside support system, like your family and friends, but… There are some precautions taken. Not everyone in your life before sees recovery the same as we do. Differing opinions are okay, but backwards momentum is something we like to avoid.”

“Okay…” Vax frowned at his paper, tapping his pencil on it. Vex would want to come. He could… “Hey, um, Pike? After this session, can we talk?”

“Of course.” She gave him another smile, before looking to Percy. “Percival, anything to contribute today?”

“No.” The short answer drew Vax’s eyes to his room mate, to the thunderclouds that overtook his face. What the hell was his problem?

“Well, then.” Pike seemed unperturbed by the answer, clapping her hands together briefly. “Papers in, gents. I think that’s enough for one day.”

Vax stayed seated as the others left, his fingers drumming on the edge of the table. Pike took another moment to organize her things before turning to him, her smile cheerful as usual. “What did you want to talk about, Vax?”

He exhaled heavily, forcing the words out before he could swallow them. “I want to invite Keyleth to the picnic. I know that--that she’s part of my problem, but… I like her. A lot. And I want her to be part of my recovery, my outside support system. It’s not like she means to do anything wrong, she was trying to help me, just… went in the wrong direction. Except I don’t even know if she’d want to come because when I mentioned visiting to her she said that she didn’t want to go back to a hospital so maybe the picnic would be good because it’s not like being in a hospital? And maybe she can talk to you or Gilmore or someone when she’s there and understand it a bit more but I don’t even know how to _ask_ her to come here and--” He took another deep breath, looking down at the table. “Maybe she’s just as broken as I am and maybe we can’t smooth out each other’s rough edges but I want to try.”

Pike reached over, patted his shoulder gently. “You should write to her. I can help you with the letter, with putting your thoughts into concise words. Write to her, have your sister deliver it the next time she visits, and ask her to call you. When she talks, _listen_. Heck, take notes like you’re in school. Address her concerns and explain your viewpoint but don’t pressure her. And… be willing to accept that the answer you get might not be the one you want. That she may be unable to face this place, even in a more cheerful setting. That as much as you want her to be part of your support system, she may not be a good fit for it. You can’t tear yourself to shreds trying to smooth out someone else’s rough edges, Vax.”

It was a lot to think about. A lot to work on. He gave her a tentative smile, nodding slowly. “Right. Okay. I’ll work on a letter. And… And all of that. Thanks, Pike.”

He stopped by the room on the way outside, grabbed his journal. His walks had become a good time to start thinking, the twenty minutes sometimes stretching to as much as an hour while he was lost in thought. Just in case he had any ideas, he didn’t want to lose them.

Percy was on his bed, rhythmically squeezing a stress ball and staring at the ceiling, the same dark anger on his face. Vax paused, fingers closed around a loose pen on his desk. “Freddie?”

“What.”

“Going for my walk, you want to come with?”

Unproductive when angry and Vax had never seen someone so blatantly angry before. Percy rolled over, put his back to the room and pulled his knees up. “I want to be alone.”

He wasn’t qualified for this shit. He wasn’t even qualified to take care of his own emotions, lately. “Okay. See you later.”

* * *

Walk, stop, write. Walk, stop, write. Vax spent nearly two hours outside, only drawn in by his rumbling stomach. He tucked his journal under his arm, the letter he’d begun to Keyleth secured in it. He’d turn the four pages, mostly scratched out, into one tomorrow, ask Pike to look at it after group.

First stop, however, was his room to drop the journal off. Then lunch, then his afternoon session with Gilmore. Routine. Things that kept his focus on something besides the itch for a cigarette that still gnawed at the back of his mind.

*

His steps froze as he entered the room, something… _off_ in the small space. Vax’s eyes tracked over each surface, stopping on his bed. His sheets were pulled out from the wall. “ _Shit_ ,” he hissed under his breath, tossing his journal carelessly onto his desk and climbing onto the bed, slipping his hand into the crack between the bed and the wall. “Shit, shit, _shit_.” They’d checked, they’d found the razor. He hadn’t cut himself intentionally since he’d gotten there, had only pressed it into his fingertips until it _hurt_ but didn’t let it break the skin. This was going to look bad, though, he knew that much--

A sound, a small noise that he knew too well, had heard from his own throat too many times. The gasp of pain followed by the hiss of relief that came with cutting. Vax scooted off the bed slowly, turned his attention to the bathroom door. Shut tight. He glanced at the door to the room, his mind racing. Go for help or check himself? If it was nothing, he didn’t want to get himself into trouble. If it was something…

The bathroom door didn’t have a lock on it and Vax didn’t waste time with knocking. He let himself in, stared across the harshly lit room to where Percy stood at the sink. His eyes were locked on his wrist over the white basin, drops of red dripping into it.

“Freddie…”

“Does it actually make you feel better?” Percy’s voice, toneless and flat, sent his heart hammering. The razor slashed through his wrist again and there was the familiar sound, sharp gasp turning into a low hiss. “Or does it just hurt so that other places don’t have to?”

“You tell me.” There were quite a few cuts, but they were shallow, hardly even bleeding. The newest one went deeper, parted flesh and tasted blood. “It’s hard, isn’t it? Going deep enough that it feels right.” He walked forward slowly, held out his hand. “You want me to do it to you? I have plenty of experience.”

That was step one when Vex caught him, back in high school. Get the sharp thing away from him. Percy looked between Vax and the razor before making a face, passing it over. He pressed himself up to the other man’s back, held his bleeding wrist in one hand and pressed the razor to it with the other. “Talk me through it. What’re you trying to stop feeling?”

“It’s this fucking… _picnic_ that everyone’s so fucking excited about.” He exhaled uneasily as Vax bit the blade into his skin, both their eyes on it as blood welled up. “Like it’s supposed to be fun and exciting to bring the people that pretend to give a shit about you down to see how awful your life is.”

“It does sound like bullshit, when you put it like that.” He drew across slowly, let the blood drip down Percy’s wrist. “But you know, I think for some people, it’s being normal for a day around those that actually do give a shit about them.”

“What the hell is normal.”

“Fucked if I know, Freddie.” He moved the razor away to his pocket, reached forward and turned the water on. “Come on, let’s wash it up and see how you did.” Step two, clean and bandage the injury.

“Probably not that great. I sat there for… fuck, almost an hour just looking at it before I even… tried.”

“Took me two days to break the skin on my first round. It looked like cat scratches until one day it… didn’t. I bandaged myself up and no one asked about it and when it healed I made a new one.” He washed the injuries gently, assessed them with the eye of experience. A few were concerning, still freely dripping blood. Especially the one he’d made. “You’re the expert on Whitestone, can we get you bandaged up without anyone knowing?”

Percy laughed hollowly. “No. They’re going to toss the room looking for the weapon and if they can’t find it they’ll strip search both of us and if they still can’t find it they’ll put us both on suicide watch instead of just me. So put it somewhere they can find it.”

“How long does suicide watch last?”

“Two days and it adds another week to my recovery program.”

“You’ve been on it before?”

In the mirror, Percy met his eyes, his mouth turned into a smirk that was almost triumphant. “They do have painkillers here, you know. I managed to sneak into the pharmacy and get a bottle, took four doses in an afternoon. That was on my third trip through.”

“Freddie, you’re sort of a badass.” Vex kissed his temple, grabbed a hand towel from the rack and pressed it over Percy’s wrist. “Hold that there. I’m gonna leave the blade in the room and go get someone, say that I came in from my walk and you asked me to go get the nurse. Fair?”

“Fair.” He pressed his hand over the towel, his eyes darting to Vax. “You know what I mean, though, right? About…”

“I know what you mean. Can’t say I agree, but… I know, yeah. Stay here, keep the towel on.”

He let the blade drop to the floor as he left the bathroom, exited the room at a run and was in a full sprint by the time he got to the duty desk. Panted words, his roommate was hurt, that they needed medical. Vax stayed where he was as the duty nurse left, listened with distant attention as someone called a Code Jenga and four more nurses along with two security guards entered his room. They left with Percy a minute later, held the towel over his wrist and hurried him to the elevator and upstairs.

Vax meandered his way back after most of them had left, looked around the room as security tossed it. “Can I take my journal with me? I have therapy soon.”

One of the men glanced at him, looked to the journal on the desk and picked it up. He flipped through it, barely sparing a look for the loose papers that fell out before scooping those up as well, passing it over. “Your therapist is going to be informed of this. We’ll find out where he got the blade.”

“That’s… understandable. Thanks.”

They’d understand _what_ he did, sure, but Vax doubted anyone else would really understand the why. Even Pike didn’t quite seem capable of grasping just how freeing it was to hurt physically instead of emotionally.

^

* * *

Two days with Percy on suicide watch, locked away in medical and not left unsupervised at all. Two days of an empty bed across the room when he woke up in the morning and an empty chair next to him during group. His letter to Keyleth seemed so… _petty_ in comparison, his excitement at the idea of the picnic so selfish. Percy wasn’t his problem. Fixing himself was his problem.

Still, it was a relief to come back from his session with Gilmore and see his room mate back. It was a relief to see Percy in bed, squeezing a stress ball with his right hand, his left wrist wrapped in bandages. Vax didn’t bother with anything as useless as shame, simply climbed into bed next to him and dropped his head to the other man’s chest.

Silence held as Percy squeezed the stress ball, before he sighed, patting his free hand lightly against Vax’s hair. “You’re weird.”

“I know. What do you think?”

“I think…” He squeezed the stress ball rhythmically, his words falling into beat with it. “I think sometimes it’s all too overwhelming and we forget that, because it’s so much fun to look at other people’s problems. It’s so much fun to point and say ‘he’s more fucked up than I am, so everything I’m doing is okay.’ And then pretty soon… all of our own problems come crashing down around us.” Percy’s head tilted down, lips pressing to the top of Vax’s head. “I was jealous, when you were so excited for the picnic. You were supposed to be the fucked up one so that I could pretend not to have any problems, and here you are… getting better the way you’re supposed to.”

Vax laughed, short and humorless. “What, have you been reading my journal? Day fucking one, a good thing that happened was I met you, someone more fucked up than I am.”

“Great minds and assholes think alike.”

The silence was comfortable, not quite sleepy, but… easy. Vax let his fingers trail down Percy’s side, his eyes closing as the other man stroked his hair.

“At least medical wasn’t so bad this time. I mostly played poker with Dr. Kima,” Percy mumbled after almost fifteen minutes, his eyes closed. “She’s Allura’s girlfriend and she kinda… gets it, with me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’ll probably have to talk about it at group, huh?”

“Probably.” Vax tilted his chin up, met Percy’s eyes with a smile. “But hey, now we match. I’m just collecting twinsies at this point.” There was more he could say, things he’d talked about with Vex when she’d visited while Percy was in medical. An idea that had started brewing in his head, a crazy, stupid idea that would never take but that he still gnawed at like a dog with an old bone.

For now, though… it was relaxing. It was easy. Vax settled more firmly against Percy, wrapping his arm around the man’s waist.

“Glad you’re back, Freddie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vax returns from his walk to find Percy self-harming. He uses methods that Vex has used on him before to get the knife away, makes a cut on Percy, and then helps him clean up a bit before going for security. Vax leaves the knife where security can find it and Percy is taken for medical treatment and suicide watch.


	7. Chapter 7

The place certainly didn’t _look_ like a hospital.

The inside was still somewhat clinical, the uncomfortable plastic waiting room chairs and stark white walls, but outside… Streamers and paper lanterns were strung up from tree to tree, surrounding the open lawn where long tables had been set up with white tablecloths. There was a tent on one end with food preparations happening inside, kitchen staff moved outside to serve everyone lunch, another awning at the opposite end where one of the security staff controlled a laptop and stereo system. Blankets were set out on the grass in some places, a large swath left clear near the music for dancing.

Vax helped carry out stacks and stacks of paper plates and cups, set them up near the beginning of the food service line. Beside him Percy stacked rolled cutlery, a fork, knife, and spoon wrapped together in a napkin. His wrist was still bandaged, but it was a smaller cloth now, almost thin enough to be a bracelet.

The picnic technically started at noon, when the first visitors would be allowed into the back garden. Morning group therapy meant that they hadn’t had to help set up tables or chairs, tents or blankets, but Pike had ushered her whole group down afterwards to assist. Vax could see her now, across the way, assisting two other women in assembling a free-standing awning over some of the tables.

“Your sister’s coming, isn’t she?” Percy spoke up as he finished stacking plasticware, reaching down and fidgeting with the bandage on his wrist. “And your… girlfriend? Keyleth.”

“Vex, yes, Keyleth… maybe. I asked her to. She called me and we talked and she said… that she’d think about it.” Vax tugged on his sleeve, looking over his shoulder. “She doesn’t like hospitals but… out here, it just feels like… I dunno, a party? What about you, are you gonna hang out and eat some food, or should I sneak a plate back to the room for you?”

It was Percy’s turn to look away, his fingers rubbing over his wrist slowly. “Allura said that I should… try it. Use it as a break in routine. And it’s a patient thing, not a fancy garden party where the hospital asks a bunch of stuffy rich people for money so _she_ won’t be here.” His shoulders dropped, his eyes on the ground. Percy’s lips were still moving, but Vax couldn’t hear him as a loud whine of feedback kicked through the speakers.

“Freddie.” He reached over, shook his shoulder lightly. “Try to lighten up just a _little_ , yeah? If it sucks you duck out and I’ll sneak you some lunch. If it’s fun… That’s a good thing, right?

His smile was tentative, but at least it was there. “Right. Fine.”

“I’m still winning the fucked up olympics, by the way.” Vax winked, walking off before Percy could form a proper response. There was still plenty to do, if he walked in any given direction someone would call him over to assist before long.

By noon the smell of food, of grilling burgers and steaming ears of corn and freshly baked beans began to permeate the air. People came out from inside, some of them patients with their gaunt faces and dark circles under their eyes, some visitors looking forcefully cheerful. Security was tighter than usual inside, a bag check, a metal detector, and a pat down before being allowed into the facility. Vax took a seat under a tree with Percy, kept a gentle hand on the other man’s wrist, his thumb rubbing against the inside of it. His right wrist, no need to bother the bandages on his left further.

Music and dancing, conversation and laughter. People milled about, found seats at tables or on the ground. Vax spotted Scanlan and Grog across the way, sat together at a table with plastic cups of water in front of them. There was a girl across from them, a little slip of a thing with a brown pixie cut that Vax hazarded to guess was the infamous Kaylie. Her back was to him, but he could see the way she leaned in to the other two, seemed to be part of their laughing conversation. That was pleasant.

His attention whipped to the doors as he heard a familiar voice, a familiar laugh… And there she was. Vex’ahlia, his sister, stepping out into the sun with her beaming smile, her hand linked with…

“Keyleth,” he whispered, licking his lips, watching the two of them as they looked around. Tall and willowy thin, her eyes big and nervous, her hair loose around her shoulders. She was dressed up, a flowing light green dress that hugged against her as a breeze puffed by before settling out again, almost ethereal. Vax swallowed, lifted a hand and managed to raise his voice enough to be heard over the general sounds of the picnic. “Vex! Kiki!”

The women spotted them, made their way across the lawn as Vax stood up. He embraced Vex tightly, held her close and kissed her forehead before turning his attention to Keyleth. Her eyes were on him, tracking up and down him carefully as he stepped forward, as he lifted his hand, suddenly unsure.

“You look… good,” she whispered, stepping into his space, letting her arms drape around him as he pulled her in. “You look so much better, Vax.”

“I’m working on it,” he whispered back, pressing his forehead to her shoulder and breathing her in. Familiar, comfortable, safe. That was how Keyleth made him feel. Like he had somewhere he belonged. “I’m glad you came. You don’t have to stay, it’s okay if you don’t want to, but… but I’m glad you came.” He kept his face hidden against her for another moment, let his tears dry up before moving back. “Come on, have a seat. Kiki, this is my roommate, Percy. Freddie, this is Keyleth.”

Quiet greetings as the two of them sat down, all four settling in on the blanket. It wasn’t quite big enough for four, maybe, but they squeezed in close and that worked. Vex’s eyes darted to Percy’s bandaged wrist, her fingertips touching his arm lightly. “Has he gotten any more tolerable?”

“No.”

She grinned, nodding. “You say that, but spend a little time away from him and suddenly you really start to miss all of his bullshit.”

“Wow, you two,” Vax spoke up, crossing his arms in a fake pout. “Sittin’ right here.”

“And?” Percy’s unimpressed eyebrow raise broke him, laughter echoing out as Vax shook his head. Keyleth giggled, her fingers pressing over her mouth.

“Well, well, what a sight to behold.” A voice behind him had Vax craning his neck, looking back at Gilmore. “Seems your group is having a good afternoon.”

“We’re certainly trying. Uh, this is Keyleth, my friend. Kiki, this is Gilmore. He’s one of the ones who’s been helping me with all… this.”

Keyleth’s eyes were down, her fingers folding into the hem of her dress as she nodded. Gilmore took a knee in the grass by them, his eyes staying centered on the group. “Lovely to meet you, Keyleth. I hope you enjoy today.”

No answer, barely even a movement from her. Gilmore nodded to the rest of the group, stood up and moved away. Eventually Keyleth exhaled, the tension of their small group breaking up. “Vax…”

“It’s fine.” He touched her hand, closed his fingers around hers gently. New people were already a problem. Authority was even more difficult. But Gilmore would understand. He’d understand nerves and anxiety and social fears. “Hey, did I tell you I was thinking of getting another tattoo? Inspired by you.”

“By me?”

Vax lifted his other hand, ran it over the ink on her collarbones gently. _I have passed through fire._ “Yeah, sort of like this but… Down my ribs. _Leave them at the bottom of the grave they dug for you._ And I’m thinking of getting my daggers colored and--there’s a lot I want to do with my life when I get out of here, Kiki. Things besides getting high or drunk or… Or numbing up.” He lifted her hand, kissed her knuckles lightly. “I wanna do them with you.”

“Vax, I…” She bit her lip, glanced around the open grass. “I don’t know if I’m…”

“You don’t have to have an answer right away. I’ve still got three weeks here. But…” He looked down, teeth working over his lower lip. “But I’ve been thinking about you a lot. About just… how good hanging out with you has always been. I’ve got friends that are okay to get drunk with, or high with, but… You’re someone I have a good time with no matter what. It’s kinda… why I’d hoped you’d come today.”

Her head dropped to his shoulder, actions over words. Keyleth’s hand stayed in his, however, fingers squeezing slowly. “Is what Vex was saying true? Did I… I mean, I just wanted to help and you seemed so… so…”

“It’s not like I knew, either. Not until I got here and Pike talked to me about it. You should meet her, I think you two would get along well. She’s very patient and calm.” He sat back slightly with her weight on him, tilted his face up to the sun. “I was heading down this road no matter what. This one or a darker path. If it hadn’t been you and your meds, it probably would have been something even more dangerous. I’ve been to plenty of parties where people are doing coke in the bathroom and heroin in the kitchen and popping who knows what kinda pills in the basement and fuck, it’s probably a good thing that all I ever wanted to feel was numb. Xanax might have made this… this downward spiral worse, but if I’d gone to that stuff… Hard to say if I’d even be here today.”

“Don’t say that…”

“Sorry.” He kissed the top of her head lightly, reached his hand up and stroked it through her hair for a moment. “Hey, uh, happier note? See those three, over there?” Vax pointed across the way, to the table with Scanlan, Grog, and Kaylie. “The guys are the other two in my therapy group, Scanlan and Grog. Alcoholics, both of them. That little pixie cut with them is Scanlan’s daughter, Kaylie. He checked himself in here to try to be a better dad for her and… I think he’s doing it. Grog’s got a family history with alcoholism but he decided to clean himself up after he met Pike. He’s on week… fuck, eight or nine without a drink, now. I think they’re both gonna make it through this and come out the other side… And if they can, it makes me think that I can, too.”

Across the blanket Percy and Vex stood abruptly, drawing Vax’s attention. “We’re gonna grab some drinks,” Vex announced, her hand curling around Percy’s wrist gently. “Preferences, you two?”

“Water’s good for me,” Vax answered immediately, his eyes on that link between his sister and his roommate. He hadn’t been paying attention to their conversation, too focused on what he’d wanted to tell Keyleth in person, but that touch… He knew that touch from when they were younger. Vex taking charge, taking care. Being the shield someone needed in the world.

“Water for me, too. Thanks.” Keyleth sat up as they left, crossed her legs under her flowing skirt and turned to face him. Her hands plucked at the blanket, her eyes down on her lap. “I’ve been… doing my own research, you know. After the stuff Vex told me, about what I was doing to you. I didn’t want to come because… I thought you’d be mad at me. I thought the letters and the phone calls were just faking it, so that you could get me somewhere and have… have everyone yell at me.”

Vax waited until her hands stilled, setting his on them gently and speaking. “I’m not mad. Not at you. Not at how you tried to help. And no one here is going to yell at you.”

She sniffed, wiped a hand under her eyes quickly. “I miss you, Vax. It’s been almost a month and… and it’s not the same without you coming over. Hell, even my plants aren’t doing as well without you around.”

“I’m a death sentence to all manner of plants and you know it. I once killed a cactus. A cactus!”

That got a watery laugh from Keyleth, her head tipping up, eyes meeting his. “But you brought laughter when you came over, and that made the plants happier. I want that back. I want us in my kitchen, sitting on the floor and eating brownie batter and pretzels and coloring on each other with sharpies. I want us on the couch, throwing popcorn at cheesy Netflix original movies. I wanna… I wanna fall asleep with your arms around me and not have to worry about nightmares waking me up.”

Exhaling unsteadily, his hands still on hers, Vax could feel it welling up. The thought during his first phone call with her. Asking Keyleth to be part of his support system and knowing she needed one of her own so much. “We can have that again, Kiki. We can. But I’m… worried.” His hands squeezed hers, his gaze over her shoulder. “I’m worried that we’ll be sitting on your kitchen floor eating pot brownies. That we’ll both have taken some of your pills and be zoned out on the couch with Netflix just running in the background. That the only way we’ll sleep without nightmares is if we’re both drunk and high at the same time. This… This place _sucks_ in so many ways. I’ve wanted nothing but a fucking cigarette since I got here and I know that want isn’t magically going to stop when I get home and can go buy a pack. But this place is also making me think about what I want out of my life… and the simplest answer to it is that I want to _live_. I don’t want to just survive, I don’t want to drift around numbed up. I wanna be alive, I wanna do things, see things, and feel things, even if they’re bad, even if they hurt. And I wanna do it with the people that I love and that love me back. I asked you to come here today, _begged_ you to come here today, because I want us both to know that we can have fun without the drugs. That I don’t need your pills to spend time with you. And that… that I won’t leave if you stop sharing them.”

There were too many emotions on Keyleth’s face for him to read properly, too many half-formed thoughts in her eyes. She leaned into him after a moment, her brow smoothing, her lips pressing to his slow and gentle. “Can I tell you a secret?” Words spoken into his mouth, eyes locked on his and seeing his nod there more than in any movement. “I didn’t take any pills before I came here. I wanted to, I have them in the car if I need to when I leave, but… You’ve been with me through so many of my worsts and so many of my bests. I wanted to try to be here for you, just as me.”

He reached up, brushed a tear off her cheek lightly and pressed his lips more firmly to hers. “Take your pills if you need them. Take care of yourself before you try taking care of me, okay?”

“Only if you promise to do the same.”

“Hey guys!” The voice had them pulling away from each other, like two high schoolers who had been caught kissing at the back of the bus. Pike dropped down to sit on the blanket, beaming widely. “I’m guessing--and kind of hoping--that this isn’t your sister, Vax.”

He pulled a face, sitting back just a bit further, his hand staying on Keyleth’s. “This is Keyleth, one of my friends. Keyleth, this is Doctor Pike Trickfoot. My sister’s off flirting with Freddie.”

“Is _that_ who has him finally smiling again? I’m going to have to go compliment her. But for now…” Pike held out her hand, her smile softer. “It’s nice to meet you, Keyleth. Vax has told me quite a bit about you, whether he knows it or not.”

“I…” Keyleth’s hand twitched in his, pulling free after a moment and shaking Pike’s quickly. “Anything good?”

“All good things. He’s quite the flatterer when he’s not being a shit.”

That drew a genuine laugh from Keyleth, her eyes darting to Vax. “He’s quite the flatterer even when he _is_ being a shit.”

“I am sitting right here and you are both correct.”

It was satisfying, to know that he was right. The easy way Keyleth talked to Pike, the laughter, the genuine conversations. He let them go, sat back and soaked in the afternoon sun. It was almost time for the food to be served and after that… If Keyleth still wanted to stay maybe he’d take a walk with her. If not he’d take a walk alone.

Pike stood up as Vex and Percy returned with plastic cups of water, her cheerful smile landing on each of them, Vax last. “Oh, before I forget, Vax. Congratulations.”

He tilted his head, one eyebrow raising. “On what?”

“You’re three weeks in. You’ve made it halfway.”

* * *

Vax skipped the prompted parts of his journaling that evening, instead writing up everything he could remember about the day. The sunshine on his skin, the grass under him, the laughter and conversations with his friends. How _good_ it had felt to just hang out with people. He paused, tapping his pen against the paper lightly.

_Keyleth left around three, which is about three hours longer than I thought she’d be there. Vex had to drive her home, but I’ll call her tomorrow and we’ll talk about The Plan more. She likes Freddie a lot, which is cool._

The Plan, the idle thought that had started worming its way into his head and that he’d infected his sister with. Was it even feasible? Probably not. Did he want to try it?

Definitely.

He was halfway. He had three weeks left. And Percy had just gotten another week put on his time, which meant _he_ had three weeks left.

They could leave together and maybe, just maybe, never have to come back.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains more emotional abuse and forced addiction near the end. As well as really shit medical/rehabilitation practices and some references to the self harming incident in chapter 6.  
> (Also guess who got super interested in Dread when writing this chapter, that's right it's me.)

The rain chased everyone inside for two days following the picnic, folding tables and chairs set up in the lounges, board games brought out. There was a television in the corner, reruns of _Friends_ on almost constantly. Nearly the whole room clapped along with the theme song every half hour, an unconscious movement that was borderline nostalgia.

Vax sat at a table with Percy and a few others, bent studiously over a game board. Monopoly perhaps wasn’t the best way to keep friends, but it certainly did pass the hours. Percy was currently collecting obscenely, his little red hotels on the board spaces that everyone seemed to land on.

“Is there anything that’s maybe, you know, _less_ frustrating to play against you?” Vax asked with a groan, passing over the last scrap of fake money he had and dropping his head to the table.

“We could play… nah, nevermind…” One of the other players, a kid who didn’t look older than fifteen named Kynan, started to speak up before dropping his voice to a mutter.

“No, please, share. Anything to wipe the smug look off this fucker’s face.”

“Well…” He glanced around the table, a hesitant smile on his face. He’d taken to Vax almost as soon as the little group had sat down with the board that morning. “You guys ever play Dungeons and Dragons?”

Percy and Vax exchanged a look, snorting laughter almost at the same time. “Yeah, Kynan. But we don’t really have the supplies for it here,” Percy explained.

His eagerness faded quickly, scuffed shoes scraping the floor. “And it’s… kinda lame, right?”

Vax swallowed down the pang of guilt, reaching over and clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Never said that. I always wanted to give it a try, myself. Maybe you can find another one of those table top games for us to play?”

It beat losing to Percy at Monopoly, at least.

* * *

It was surprising, how difficult it was to say goodbye to Scanlan.

His four week program was up, he was set up with an AA group outside of the center, and he actually seemed… capable of this. Vax was glad to see him better, in a way, but knowing that his smile, his laughter, his jokes wouldn’t be at group anymore… That ached a little, deep inside.

Grog sobbing like a child might have been part of it, though.

“Ya can’t just leave us, Scan-man!” The big man bawled, wrapping his arms tight around Scanlan and refusing to let go. “Yer our best guy! Those two’re way too mopey ‘bout everything!”

“Grog. You’re crushing my ribs.” Scanlan wheezed in a breath as he was let go, patting the other man’s shoulder. “Come on, it’ll be fine. We’ve all gotta face the real world eventually, lads.”

“And besides, moving on from here is a happy occasion,” Pike added in, smiling and passing out slices from the small cake she’d brought. “We’re celebrating that Scanlan is ready to live a clean and sober life, just like we all want to.”

Percy and Vax exchanged raised eyebrows, quietly beginning to eat their cake. Grog was emotional enough for all of them.

The small party their group therapy session was for the day was short-lived, everyone splitting off fairly quickly after the cake was gone. Scanlan still had check-out paperwork and interviews, most of which Pike had to be present for. Grog took off to go mope somewhere, possibly his room. Vax and Percy wandered down to the second floor lounge, mostly empty during group therapy time. There was a half-constructed Jenga tower on one table, sheets of paper around it. Kynan had gotten a surprisingly positive response to his tabletop gaming suggestions and after some internet digging he’d found some games that could be played with what Whitestone had.

“This makes four weeks for me. Two left,” Vax spoke quietly, dropping into a chair and chewing on the edge of his sleeve.

“Week five. Two left thanks to… Well.” Percy rubbed the almost healed scabs on his wrist, shrugging. “Wonder if I’ll make it a month before I’m back here again.”

“About that…” He looked to the door, his voice faltering. “I’ve been talking to Vex since… before the picnic. About recovery, about what we’re going to do afterwards to help keep me clean. She can’t be my only supporter out there, and… well, Keyleth’s great but she’s part of my problem. This guy that Gilmore’s set me up with, Kashaw, I don’t really know yet…”

“What, you want me to be your support for the couple weeks I’m around between trips through rehab?” Percy snorted.

“I want us to be each other’s support.” Vax swallowed, took the dive. “You’re not that bad of a person to deal with, Freddie, and Vex and I have a three bedroom apartment that we’re only using two of the bedrooms in. Instead of heading back to getting hooked again, why not say fuck it and come live with us? The two of us can keep each other in check, we know all the methods that get taught here. And Vex can help us out, too.”

The silence between them drew out uncomfortably, as Percy picked at his thumbnail and Vax gnawed the sleeve of his shirt almost frayed. Finally, Percy stood up, crossing to the door.

“Freddie?”

“I’ll… think about it.”

That was all he could really ask of the man.

* * *

Two weeks left. Two weeks left until he could sleep in his own bed again, until he could make dinner with his sister, until he could have friends over for a movie night or go on a road trip or any number of normal things that someone did during the summer break from college. Two weeks until he found out if his job was still open for him or if he’d have to find another shitty video game store to work at nineteen hours a week (or skip the job entirely, but having his own money that his dad couldn’t lock him away from had become such a sudden priority that Vax couldn’t imagine _not_ working).

He didn’t want to come back to this place.

There were parts of it he liked. The structure and the lack of responsibility and the chance to… to think on himself, he supposed those things were good for him. There were people here he liked, like Gilmore and Pike, like Grog and Scanlan (who wasn’t here anymore, Vax had to remind himself as he got dressed in the morning, got ready for group therapy). People that he’d probably miss when he was gone, but that would be happier to never see him again.

And there was Percy, who still hadn’t answered his proposal to live together. Vax didn’t expect him to, but… he’d sort of hoped, when he’d come back to the room the previous night. Percy hadn’t been there. When he’d woken up, Percy still wasn’t there. Worry gnawed into him, ever so slightly. If Percy wasn’t at group, Vax wasn’t even going to pretend not to be nervous. He was just going to outright ask Pike about it.

He didn’t quite get the chance.

“Who the hell is this?” Grog voiced his thoughts from behind him in the door, his question not even subtle, one huge hand pointing over Vax’s shoulder to the blond man that sat in Scanlan’s seat.

Pike looked to them with a smile and a nod, gesturing them inside. “Guys, this is our new group member. I’ll let him introduce himself. Percival won’t be joining us today, he has a… different arrangement for a couple of days.”

“Is he okay?”

“He’s fine, Vax. I’m sure he’ll tell you about it when he comes back, if he wants to.”

They sat down slowly, Grog spreading himself out, taking as much space as possible and forcing the new guy practically into the corner of the table. Vax looked him over slowly, assessing. He looked like hell, really, probably just as bad as Vax had looked when he’d first arrived. Dark circles under his eyes, sunken cheeks, his fingers fidgeting with the medical bracelet on his wrist--not from Whitestone, as far as he could tell, the logo on it was different.

Silence held among them as Pike passed out papers, as she took a seat and offered the group a smile. “Well, let’s all introduce ourselves to make our new member more comfortable. My name is Doctor Pike Trickfoot, but you can call me Pike…” She continued on, listing out the rules Vax had heard when he’d first arrived, the purposes of the group therapy session, before prompting Grog to introduce himself next.

“I don’t like this,” the big man said immediately, crossing his arms. “We can’t just… just _replace_ Scanlan.”

“Grog… Scanlan’s entered a new stage of recovery. He doesn’t need to be here every day, and there are more people in the world to help. We’re not replacing him. We’re letting someone else get the same help he sought.”

“Don’t like it.”

“Just introduce yourself to him, okay, buddy?” Pike’s tone was somewhere between cajoling and demanding, not letting in room for argument but also not forcing the issue if Grog really wasn’t going to go through with it.

After another moment’s pause, he shoved a hand at the new guy. “I’m Grog. You’re in my best mate’s seat an’ I don’t like you.”

“I--”

“I wasn’t done talking! Can’t even follow the rules, Pikey, what’s with this guy? Anyways, I been here for nine weeks now. Okay. Now I’m done.”

The new guy drummed his fingers on the edge of the desk, looking among them quickly, his eyes landing on Pike. She nodded, encouraging. “I… I’m Taryon Darrington. I shouldn’t be here.” Vax snorted into his hand, managed to just barely keep words out of his reaction. No interrupting. “My father… he _thinks_ I have a problem, but I don’t. Not the kind of ‘problem’ he claims I have, anyways… So he sent me here to keep me… keep me out of the way. But I’m not on drugs! I don’t… I don’t do that no matter what he says.” His fingers resumed their tapping, his eyes on the table.

He almost felt sorry for this guy… almost. Vax leaned forward, propped his chin up in his hand and watched Taryon Darrington’s face. “So then, what’s with the bracelet?”

“It--it’s nothing.” He yanked on it, curled the fingers of his hand around it to cover whatever information might have been on there.

“Vax…” Pike’s warning caught him now and he sat back, exhaling heavily.

“Call me Vax. I’ve been here for four weeks now, which means I’m almost out that door. I had a problem with a lot of things, mostly denial.”

“Is that a street name for a drug?”

“Is… what?”

“Dee Nile.” Taryon blinked up at him, the picture of innocence, and Vax groaned.

“I’m on Grog’s side. I want Scanlan back. At least he understood what drugs were.”

* * *

By the third day with no sign of Percy, Vax was giving up on ‘he’ll tell you if he wants to’ and getting ready to start demanding answers. It was _weird_ , at this point, waking up without the other man in the room. Going to sleep without chatting with him. Not having someone to hang out with during the hours of free time.

His agitation was clearly visible as he flopped into the chair in Gilmore’s office, dropping his journal into his lap and tilting his head back. “I don’t think I’m ever going to stop wanting a fucking cigarette, Gil.” He had brought his pen along, held it between his fingers like a cigarette and squeezed it occasionally.

“No?”

“It’s…” Vax huffed out a breath, flipping through his journal and passing it over. He’d folded the pieces of paper that Vex had snuck in between the pages of the journal carefully, stuck them in with a bit of tape. “My sister brought me those. Her and Keyleth made a whole pack of cigarettes worth of them. That was on her first visit, I thought she’d actually snuck me in my smokes.”

“I’m surprised that made it through security. These are nice messages, though.”

“They _are_. And every time I get like this, where all I want to do is go outside and chain smoke and have some time to collect my thoughts, I look at them and remind myself why I’m not doing that. But I can’t exactly stop and do that in the real world, you know? If it gets overwhelming, if the stress starts to dig in, I don’t have the safe space where I can just walk away. It used to be smoke breaks at work and smoking between classes and sometimes running to Keyleth’s car with her and taking some of her pills and a lot of the time getting high after class or drinking on the weekend--or weeknights, towards the end there. How do you stop yourself from just falling back into it? It’s so much _easier_ to numb up than to let it all keep crashing down around you.” He spun the pen between his fingers, words stumbling over each other in his rush to get them out.

“Well…” Gilmore smoothed his fingers over his desk, spreading them out. “What methods do you know?”

Vax exhaled unsteadily, taking his journal back and flipping through it. He’d written his coping methods on one of the blank pages near the front, when he’d only been journaling the bare necessities. “Step one, identify the stress. Step two, identify if the cause is internal or external. Step three, identify a method to safely remove as much of the stress as possible short term. Step four, assess the severity of the stress from a safely removed distance. Step five, determine further action.” He rubbed a hand against his face, his breathing already slowing. Even knowing the coping methods helped, in its own way.

“Step one, Vax?”

“I’m worried about Freddie. I haven’t seen him for most of a week now. Not since the day Scanlan checked out.”

“And is that caused internally or externally?” Gilmore folded his hands, his voice slow and steady.

“External. Internal? The stress is coming from inside me, my head offering all sorts of awful things that could have happened to him. But that’s happening because he disappeared without saying anything.”

“What safe method would remove as much of the stress as possible short term?”

Vax frowned, his eyes closing for a minute. Focus on the external. Percy disappeared without a word, how does he counter that? It was easier than trying to calm his own nerves. “If I ask someone that knows--maybe Pike or Allura--if he’s okay, they’ll be able to answer me.”

“More direct, Vax. Focus on the internal reduction. You’ve jumped directly to further action.”

His fingers drummed against the pages of his journal, his eyes still closed. Reduce the stress. “I can’t… Gilmore, I’m worried about him because I haven’t seen him in three days and he hasn’t said anything to me… and I keep…” Vax swallowed, his fingers curling. “Stuff I tell you doesn’t get me in trouble, does it?”

“That’s a very broad question, but for the sake of it… No. What you tell me here will stay between us.”

That was easier. He took another slow inhale-exhale, looking across the desk to Gilmore. “When Freddie cut himself before the picnic… I helped. I snuck in a razor blade when I first got here and hid it in the room. He saw it, but he didn’t tell and security sweeps didn’t find it. And… I came back from my walk and he was in the bathroom, doing it… I’ve been on that end of things before, Vex figured out a pretty good way to bring me down from it. But instead of taking away the blade, washing him up, and bandaging him… Or getting help, I…” Vax looked down, shame burning into him. “He had a bunch of little ones, just barely scratches, you know? And I knew--I knew that it wouldn’t feel right until he went really deep. He told me as much. So I helped him go deep. I took the blade from him and I got it in deep enough that it just kept bleeding.”

Gilmore was frowning, his pen moving across his notebook quickly. “That’s a very dangerous thing to do, Vax.”

“I know. It felt good for… for a second, just like when I do it to myself… and then I got scared, _really_ scared, that I’d… that I’d killed him or something. That he just wouldn’t stop bleeding. I told him to put a towel on it and hold it there and I left the blade where security would find it and went to get someone.” Vax pulled his knees up to his chest, tugging at the hem of his pants. “The thing that keeps coming back to me now is that… Is that that’s what happened. That he just kept bleeding and he died and it was my fault. That that’s why he’s not around anymore. Even though I saw him between then and now. Even though I laid in bed with him and I know he’s okay.”

The pen stilled, dark eyes on him across what suddenly felt like an ocean of distance. “Have you felt a similar guilt with yourself? A similar fear that you could have cut too deeply and just not stopped bleeding when you were hurting yourself?”

“Sometimes… I would think about… about Vex coming into the room to get me for school and finding me… you know, dead and stuff. And how scared she’d be. That’d usually be when I stopped. If she didn’t find me doing it and stop me first.”

“So your stress from Percival’s disappearance comes from guilt related to cutting. Because you assisted him in harming himself the way you have done before. Because you recognize how dangerous what you did was--to him, and to yourself.” Gilmore stood, moved around his desk and wrapped one arm around Vax’s shoulders. “I am under legal obligations to report your behaviors to security. Harming another patient is a serious offense.” Vax bit his lip, nodding slowly. Of course nothing was actually secret, not even in here. “However… You no longer have the blade?” A headshake. “Do you have others?”

“Not… not here. I have some knives and things at home.”

“Then you are not presently a danger to yourself or others, I would say. And your guilt for what you did, what you aided in, seems more than punishment enough so long after the fact.” He pressed his lips to Vax’s temple, far from professional but still soothing. Like a version of the gentle kisses Vex would give him when he was having a particularly bad time. “Are you aware of Percival’s… family situation?”

“You mean that they’re all dead and his aunt or whatever is running this place?”

Gilmore nodded, his voice still low, his mouth still close to Vax’s ear. “That exactly. He told you, then… She likes to… demonstrate him. The head of recovery psychology, Dr. Anna Ripley, is fond of… testing unproven methods of rehabilitation from addiction. And in the eyes of those two women, there is no better addict to test these things on than your roommate.”

Vax shuddered, genuine fear clenching his heart. He didn’t need to see Gilmore’s face to know the disapproval that was there. “What are they doing to him?”

“That information I’m not privy to. Allura will likely learn more about it once he returns. Until then… Just know that this disappearance is not your fault. Your guilt over the cutting incident, however, is something that you’ll have to attend to yourself. I’m here to help, of course.” He stood again, his hand lingering on Vax’s shoulder. “Security never did figure out where the blade came from. I’m going to tell them that you admitted to sneaking it in. They’ll search your room again, more thoroughly, but if you really don’t have any other implements, I suspect that your punishment will be light. Another week of recovery is what I’ll advise.”

The emotions boiling inside him, the guilt and fear and everything else, were too strong for Vax to properly swallow what Gilmore said. He left with his notebook, meandered down to his bedroom and curled up with his arms around his pillow, staring at the empty bed across the way.

* * *

One more week wasn’t so bad. Vex was disappointed, when he called her and told her, but she seemed to understand. He couldn’t tell her, not in the common room, not over the phone, all of the details. Gilmore had kept his word, had kept silent about Vax’s aiding in Percy’s cutting incident. He wasn’t going to blow that cover.

It took two more days for Percy to come back, looking hollow and exhausted. He stumbled into the room one evening as Vax was writing in his journal, made directly for his bed and curled up tight.

“Freddie?”

“Mm…” The noncommittal noise brought Vax to his feet, moving over to him slowly.

“Do you want company?”

“Yes.” His voice was so small, so distant. Vax lifted the blankets, slid into bed behind him and wrapped his arms around him. He could feel the tension there, was about to ask if this was too much, before Percy shuddered and relaxed into him. “Don’t… don’t leave, okay?”

“Okay.” Steady breathing and quiet, his lips pressing light kisses to the back of Percy’s neck, easing the tension from him slowly. He hummed, the song his mother used to sing, the one Vex would hum when he was upset and she was holding him like this. Finally, finally, Percy rolled over in his arms, reached up and threaded fingers into Vax’s hair.

“We’re both getting weirder.”

“Yeah.”

“Did you… do you still… that offer…”

“If you want to, yes. Short term, long term, whatever works for you.” He held the other man’s gaze, watched him steadily. _Something_ had happened while he’d been gone, something that had him looking over Vax’s shoulder and flinching at shadows.

“I think I’d like that.”

More comfortable quiet as they laid together, as Vax’s fingers trailed up and down Percy’s side. He couldn’t be sure about Percy, but he’d always been comforted by tactile things, by having someone hold him or touch him. It seemed to be helping, the gentle movement of his hand, the slowly steadying lift and fall of Percy’s ribs under his fingers. Maybe they both needed it. He leaned up slightly, pressed a kiss to Percy’s forehead.

“Glad you’re back, Freddie.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains discussions of homophobia; discussions of underage sex; discussions of a suicide attempt.

Of all the unexpected events, of all the twists and turns his life had taken, of all the strange possibilities… This one particular instance may have just pushed Vax’s ability to accept his reality beyond the edge.

Percy liked Taryon.

Not at first blush, sure. As soon as they’d been introduced during group, Percy seemed to tune out, to be as distant to him as Vax and Grog were. It wasn’t until midway through the morning session that he suddenly leaned forward, peered at the blond man across the table and nodded.

“You too, huh?”

Taryon tilted his head, one hand rubbing the back of his neck slowly as he met Percy’s eyes. Grog and Vax exchanged raised eyebrows of confusion as Pike’s lips quirked into a smile and her pen darted across the page.

“Yeah… Me, too,” Taryon answered finally, his cheeks turning pink as he looked away.

Percy sat back in his chair, his pencil sketching across his paper. Little designs, little ideas. His brain worked a mile a minute when his head was clear. “You know the really messed up part? Any of you?”

“What’s the really messed up part, Percy?” Pike somehow kept the smile out of her voice, as serious and professional as ever if her bright grin couldn’t be seen.

“When you use prescription opioids for chronic pain, you’re not curing the pain. You’re masking it. And when you go long enough, you start to feel more pain, become more sensitive to it. A good doctor lowers your dose and weans you off. A bad doctor ups your dose. Guess which one I had.” He grimaced, his gaze moving to Pike. “You’ve heard it all before. The second I complain of pain related to the accident I get re-prescribed the Oxy and the dose goes up and up until they toss me back in here. Neat little cycle, huh?”

Taryon’s eyes were wide. “So why don’t you get a new doctor?”

“That’s… complicated. Given my history, there shouldn’t be a doctor in the country that wants me taking anything stronger than ibuprofen, but…” Percy raised one shoulder in a shrug. “So, what started you on it?”

“I…” He tapped his fingers on the edge of the table, his eyes down again. “I’m not--I’m not abusing them. I have a prescription, I take it when I need it. It’s not too often. Except… you know, sometimes the recommended dose doesn’t do anything or doesn’t do enough, so I take more. A lot more, if I need to.”

Silence held for a moment, before Percy exhaled heavily. “It’s sort of the nice thing about having this group, Tary. No one here judges anyone else for their problems, because we all have our own or just want to help.”

Taryon nodded, his hand closing on the edge of the table, gripping it white-knuckled. “I took too many one time and now my dad is threatening to disown me if I don’t clean up my act. He’s already in a rage about having a public ambulance come to our home where the neighbors might see. He’d rather pay for a private hospital to pump my stomach and shuttle me off to a clinic on the other side of the country to get clean. We Darringtons, we have to be perfect or we could lose it all. And I’m not perfect in his eyes, in so many ways.”

Vax let out a low whistle, looking around the group as eyes fell on him. He shrugged, lips twisting into a sour smile. “Daddy issues. That’s really all you had to say from the start. But hey, you know what? Fuck your dad. Fuck his opinions of you and especially fuck him if he cares more about what people might say than about if you’re doing okay. Sort yourself out for yourself and just know that you’re stronger than he’ll ever be. You’re stronger than everyone who’s ever hurt you, when you claw your way up from the bottom.”

“Crude, but true,” Percy agreed, leaning back in his chair and cracking his spine. “What do you think, Grog?”

“I think…” Grog tapped his pencil on his paper, looking Taryon up and down slowly. “Yeah. Forget what your dad wants. You wanna change, right?”

“I guess.”

“Then change. Duh.”

It wasn’t quite that easy, of course, but Vax had to admit, as he passed his mostly blank paper over to Pike at the end of the day’s group session, it was accurate. He couldn’t have begun to get better without wanting to. He couldn’t change without taking the first step.

* * *

“You live to break the rules, don’t you?”

“Yep.” Vax popped the ‘p’ as he spoke, his head tilting up to look at Percy. They were lying in bed together, almost a routine at this point, relaxing in the near-dark that came with light’s out. “What rule am I breaking?”

“We’re really not supposed to share a bed.”

“What could this place possibly have against some platonic cuddling? Isn’t physical contact with another person supposed to be good for you?”

Percy made a face in the dim light, reaching up and flicking his forehead. “I don’t think they’d care that much if we weren’t both men.”

“Oh. Well, fuck that.” Defiance colored his words as Vax pressed a kiss to Percy’s chin. “We’re not doing anything sexual. Guys can cuddle each other. Probably should a lot more, it’d probably make the world better.” Besides, lying in bed with Percy was about the only time his mind was quiet, not consumed with worries or thoughts of how much he wanted a smoke. Four weeks was not enough to break that habit. He doubted seven would be, either.

“It’s not like I’m complaining, I just…” Percy sighed, secured his arms around his room mate and made a noise of comfort in the back of his throat. “They put another week on my total for the one that I missed.”

He hadn’t talked about those days he’d been gone. Hadn’t said anything about them. He’d been quiet and still the night he came back, stiff in Vax’s arms until he fell asleep, but after that he was seemingly back to normal. Whatever normal was. Quiet, sure, but not as distant. Not as shaky.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?”

“That’s an understatement.” Percy laughed, low and sardonic. “How much did Pike tell you?”

“Pike didn’t tell me anything, but I had… a bit of a breakdown with Gilmore. I was worried about you and I was feeling guilty that you were gone, it was a lot. He told me that… That you’re a bit of…”

“A lab rat. Or an easy one to torture. Take your pick. Ripley gets an idea for a new method of ‘coping’ and I get to test it out. Aversion therapy, this time.” He closed his eyes and under his head, Vax felt Percy’s heart speed up.

“Freddie, you don’t have to--”

“They know just how to twist the knife. Metaphorically. Make me stand for hours and hold things up because even after all the surgeries, the broken bones never quite stop hurting. Maybe because of them it still hurts. Then, when I’m hurting so bad I’m almost begging for relief, they put the painkillers in front of me and say that no, I don’t need them and no, I can’t have them. And if I try to take them?” He took a shuddering breath, his arms tighter around Vax. “If I try to take them, they yank them away and make me go back to doing the thing that made it hurt so bad in the first place.”

“There’s no way that actually helps.”

“Of course not. But after one day of that shit, I was a mess and then they had a reason to keep me for another--how long was it? Four days?”

“Six, total. I found out some of it on day three. Freddie, you can’t keep coming back to that. It’ll kill you.” Vax reached up, stroked his bleached hair until the heartbeat under his ear started to ease back to normal.

“I think that’s their plan. I’ve never… never had an out before. Never had someone who… you know, cared.” Percy sighed, his hands trailing down Vax’s back. “You think we can actually keep each other in line?”

“I think it’s worth trying.”

Breaking the rules or not, there was no way he was getting out of Percy’s bed that night. Not when the other man was still shaking against him. Vax settled against Percy’s chest more comfortably, closing his eyes. He let the steadying heartbeat lull him to sleep, let his dreams paint a picture of the future. Four of them, himself and Percy, Vex and Keyleth, getting their shit sorted out and making each other happy, functional adults. Maybe Vex would get a dog, like she’d always talked about. A big drooly mess, something like a St. Bernard or a Newfoundland. As soon as they had a house and jobs that would support getting a pet…

* * *

He shouldn’t have been that surprised. Group therapy tended to cluster people together and who else was Taryon going to hang out with? Grog? Still, coming into the cafeteria and seeing the blond in his usual seat across from Percy was a start that Vax did not need before he’d even had his coffee.

He dropped into the chair next to Taryon, reached over and fished a sugar packet from next to Percy’s own steaming mug--tea, for him. His brain didn’t really work until after that first cup of coffee, he always forgot to grab sugar and it’d taken less than a week for Percy to start grabbing an extra one for him. Vax poured in the packet and stirred, taking a long drink before turning to Taryon. “Mrph.”

“I’m not sure if that’s ‘good morning’ or ‘get out of my seat’.”

“That was ‘good morning.’ There’d be more than one syllable for the other one.” Percy pushed bacon across his plate, let Vax pick it up and begin gnawing on it. “Give him another five minutes, the words will start.”

“Don’ talk about me like m’not here, Freds.”

“You barely count as present when you won’t remember the conversation.”

“Fu--” A wide yawn stopped the words, Vax’s head dropping into his hand as he took another drink of coffee. “Morning, Taryon.”

“Good morning, Vax.”

The medical bracelet had been removed from his wrist at some point and Vax found his attention zeroed in on the skin there. Medium tone, much lighter than his but much, much darker than Percy’s nearly glowing white skin. There were no scars there. It was… odd, to say the least. Almost everyone he’d met in the recovery program had some sort of self harm scars. Needle marks or cuts or fading bruises from a thousand living nightmares. “Hey, Tary…”

“Yes?”

“How’d you get started on the pills?”

“I…” He hesitated, scrubbed his hands against the legs of his jeans. “Is that something to just… talk about? In public?”

“You’re literally surrounded by addicts in varying stages of recovery,” Percy pointed out, looking around the room. “There’s not much else _to_ talk about, sometimes. Unless you’d rather cover it in group?”

“I have a prescription for methadone to treat anxiety.” He exhaled the words in a rush, stopping to look over his shoulder before facing them again. “Like I said yesterday, we Darringtons have to be perfect. And I’m… not. I had a… a school mate? He was a year ahead of me and my father hired him to tutor me in math one summer. We got along… too well. My father found out about it and… didn’t respond well. He ruined Lawrence’s reputation, might have even had him sent to jail as a predator because he’d turned eighteen at the beginning of that summer and I was still sixteen until October. Not even anything scandalous, I guess, but because we were… well… Because I’m…” Taryon took another uneasy breath, his fists clenching on his knees. “He was convinced that something had broken in me from it. That I was… forced. That I needed a method to cope with the trauma. He refused to accept that it was mutual, consensual… Who I was. So he set me up with a doctor who decided I had anxiety and prescribed me methadone to cope. Which I guess isn’t _wrong_ but the source of it is wrong. What Lawrence and I did… I’ve struggled with it. With accepting that it was okay. That nothing my father said about him or what I did with him was true. That’s not what caused the problem. My father’s reaction is.” He looked up from the table, looked to Percy and gave a wan smile. “Some days I almost believe that, too.”

“Fucking hell, Tary. I know I said it yesterday, but seriously, _fuck_ your dad.” Vax pulled the sleeve of his shirt back, turned the tattoos and scars on his wrist towards Tary. “My dad’s similar. He doesn’t like a lot of things about me and he spent my entire high school life keeping me under this thumb. Keeping me the way his political career said I had to be. It fucked me up real good, made me start doing this.” His hand moved to Taryon’s shoulder, squeezing gently. “It’s better once you’re out from under his thumb… and being clean will probably make it even better after that.”

“I’m stuck in that house for another year, at least, though. After… after everything that happened, with Lawrence and… all of that… Life sort of stopped. I started failing my classes and I didn’t even try to apply for colleges and when my dad found out. Well.” Vax’s arm wrapped over Taryon’s shoulders and he leaned into it, shook his head. “I guess it doesn’t matter that much, right? All I have to do is stop being a fuck up and things will go back to how they’re supposed to be. I’ll… I’ll be who I’m supposed to be.”

“My god, Tary, will you listen to yourself?” Percy frowned across the table, shaking his head. “You don’t have to live up to anyone’s standards but your own. If you want to go to college, work towards it. If you don’t, find what you _do_ want to do. You’re--how old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

“You’re _seventeen_. You’re not supposed to have all the answers, you’re just supposed to _think_ you do. You’re at the perfect age to decide for yourself who you want to be and start getting there. You can ask for help, that’s what being in Whitestone is all about, really, but… What your father thinks of you shouldn’t be informing your happiness. It never should, but especially not now.” Percy punctuated his words with a slam of his hands against the table, standing up and walking away. “Come on, you two. Group time.”

“Is he always like that?” Taryon asked after a moment of stunned silence, shrugging off Vax’s arm from his shoulders.

They stood, meandering towards the stairs as Vax considered it. “No. Not usually.”

“That’s a shame. It’s sort of… you know, attractive.”

Vax snorted into his hand. “Yeah.”

* * *

The fingers stroking through his hair were nice. Soothing. Vax closed his eyes, eased back into Vex’s lap and let his mind drift. He could hear her talking above him, her and Percy and Taryon about nothing of consequence. Another Saturday visit from his sister, a letter from Keyleth that she’d brought him. He’d read it later, stick it in his journal and call her and talk about it. They’d been having a lot of long phone calls since the picnic.

The slowly descending silence made him open his eyes, looking around at the small group with a raised eyebrow. Their focus was across the lawn and Vax propped himself up enough to see what had caught all of their attention.

A small group of people in business suits, led by a woman dressed in sharply creased slacks and a smart blazer, strolling along the path. He could see her mouth moving as she led them, felt Vex shift above him. Soft words came from his sister’s mouth, her ability to read lips conveying the woman’s words to them. “ _...patient care is our number one priority… variety of activities to occupy… along with simple jobs…_ ” The woman turned away and Vex sat back again, her attention turning to Percy. “That’s her, isn’t it?”

“That’s her.” Percy’s lips were set in a thin line, his hands shaking in his lap. “If you don’t want to be involved in this, go now.”

Vax sat up completely, moved himself to sit next to his sister and reached over to touch Percy’s hand. “What’s going to happen?”

“And here are some of our patients, now.” The woman’s voice answered for him, her steady strides approaching their small group. “Ah, let’s see… Doctor Trickfoot’s group, yes? You’re all doing marvelously, I see.” The false charm of her smile made Vax’s skin crawl, his hand dropping to the ground behind Percy.

“Whitestone is… a truly magnificent place to change. To recover. To become a better you,” Percy spoke, his gaze steady on the woman. “They should really make that the slogan again.”

Her smile twitched away for a moment before she turned her back to them, nodding to her group. “We’ll leave our patients to their privacy, of course. Allow me to lead you back inside, to our state of the art medical wing.” They moved away, barely glanced at the seated group. As she held the door open for them, the woman shot a look back to Percy that was pure venom.

“Hate you too, Auntie,” he ground out, dropping back onto the ground and staring up at the sky, exhaling uneasily. “She’s going to make my life miserable for that one, but she’s only got another two weeks to do anything.”

“That was your aunt?” Taryon’s voice, low and almost unheard, a sudden reminder that he was there, too. “Your aunt runs this place?”

“Whitestone belonged to my family… It was founded by my grandfather. It’s a… rather sordid affair. But yes, she runs this place. It’s why I keep ending up back here.” Percy tilted his head towards Taryon, watching him. “I don’t exactly brag about it. Most people probably wouldn’t believe me. I don’t think much of the staff does besides Pike and Allura. I’m in and out too frequently to be anything but an attention-seeking junkie, you know?”

“How frequently do you come back here?”

“I’ve been doing at least three trips through a year since I was sixteen. So… this is number…” He counted on his fingers, tongue poking out from the corner of his mouth. “Twenty? Something like that. I managed to do the impossible and get five trips in a single year a couple of years ago. Nineteen was a bad age for me.”

Vex made a noise in the back of her throat, reaching over and taking Percy’s hand, squeezing it. “But this is the last one.” Her gaze moved to Vax, then drifted over to Taryon. “This is the last one for all of you. Promise me.”

Vax held his sister’s gaze for another minute, before his eyes shifted down to where she was holding Percy’s hand. He reached for them, closed his hand around both of theirs. “I promise.”

“I promise, too,” Percy said.

They looked to Taryon, who shifted his weight before slowly reaching forward, his hand hesitantly settling on theirs. “I… I promise.”

The twins stayed behind as Percy left for his afternoon therapy session, as Taryon left to go write in his journal. They stayed out on the lawn until almost sunset, sat in the quiet of each other’s company. Vax pulled Vex in close to him, kissed the top of her head gently. “I had a dream, the other night. About you and me and Keyleth and Freddie.” He closed his eyes, pulled up the images that his subconscious had provided. “We had a house with a big yard and you had that dog you always wanted, a big monster Newfie running around drooling and shedding on everything. We were happy. We were safe.”

“Doesn’t have to just be a dream, you know. Percival and I have been… talking. He calls me, sometimes. I don’t think that he’s really had anyone from outside this place to talk to in… in a long time.” Vex slipped her arms over her brother’s shoulders, pulled him that much closer to her. “I think that we’ll make this work. Two more weeks and we can certainly try.”

“I want to try. I want to be happy. Normal. I don’t want to be numb anymore, even if it hurts.”

They pulled apart slowly, stood up and brushed themselves off. Vax saw Vex out, held her tight and kissed her forehead. “Vex… when we get out of here… we should go visit Mom.”

“What brought this on?”

He shrugged crookedly, looking away. “I… I’ve just been thinking about her. About what she’d think of me. Not--not being an addict, but of me changing. Becoming better for myself.”

She smiled, patting his cheek gently. “We’ll save up and go visit her, then. Once you’re home again.”

He laid awake long after lights out that night, curled up on his side staring at the blank wall beside his bed, listening to Percy’s even breathing across the room. Vax’s fingers rubbed against the uneven skin on the inside of his left wrist, the scars and tattoos and reminders of both. His thumb traced letters onto his skin, over and over.

H-O-M-E. Home.

It was a good word to think of.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last bout of dealing with abuse and forced addiction in this chapter.

Two weeks wasn’t a long time. Not when it was stacked up against the six he’d been facing when he came in. Not he measured it against the five that had already passed. The days seemed to go by in a pleasant blur, easier and easier.

Kashaw Vesh, his new therapist, met him in Gilmore’s office at the beginning of his last week in rehab. Just because Gilmore said they’d be a good fit for each other didn’t make it automatically true, but as soon as Vax shook the man’s hand he felt… okay with it. It’d take some getting used to, but it wasn’t as terrifying as the thought of change had been a month and a half ago.

Leaving Whitestone behind was scary, but he could do it with some measure of relief.

Leaving behind Taryon, Grog, and Pike… not as much.

The big man was already there when the three of them arrived for their last group session, his arms resolutely crossed and his lower lip jutted out in a pout. He didn’t turn as they entered the room, didn’t look at any of them as they took their seats.

Pike set the cake on the table, just like Scanlan’s last day, her smile wide. “Well, this is quite the occasion. We have two group members ready to go out and face the world with what they’ve learned.” She looked among them, the smile slowly dropping. “Aw, hell. I’m gonna miss you guys, though!”

“It ain’t fair, leavin’ me alone wi’ him!” Grog added, jabbing a finger into Tary’s side. “He’s all smart ‘n stuff, and Pike’s all smart, an’ now I’m gonna be the dumb one!”

“Wait… who was the dumb one before?” Percy raised an eyebrow, snorting a laugh as Grog immediately pointed at Vax. “I don’t know, Grog. You could still be the handsome one.”

“That was Scanlan.”

Pike snickered, clapping her hands for their attention. “Okay, okay, okay. I know we all want cake and cheerful insults, but let’s try to focus a little bit. Anyone have anything that they want to share?” She sliced up the cake as she spoke, passed out plates and forks to the small group.

Percy’s fingers drummed on the edge of the table, his eyes darting to Vax. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He sat back, pushing his glasses up briefly and looking to Pike. “I’m… not going home, this time. Which means I’m maybe not coming back here. Vax and his sister invited me to come live with them.”

“We’re going to be part of each other’s support systems,” Vax added on, dropping his arm over Percy’s shoulders. “No offense, but I’d rather not do another seven weeks here.” He chewed on his lip for a moment, before continuing. “And I’m going to start looking for a better job. Something that has long term potential. I wanna start living my life, not just surviving day to day. I’ve got another year or so before I finish my degree program, but… looking in my field is better than a video game store.”

Pike nodded, looking to Percy. “And what plans do you have after you get out?”

He cracked his fingers together briefly, shrugging under Vax’s arm. “Finish college. If I can stay clean, I should be done by the end of the year. Once I have my degree, I’ll start working towards what comes next. I have… ideas.”

“It sounds like you both have bright futures ahead of you. I expect letters about your great successes.” She smiled, turning her attention to Taryon and Grog. “Tary, have you thought about college?”

“Not much. I… I used to want to go into engineering.” He shifted, twirling his fork slowly. “Before I tanked my grades, that is.”

“Grades aren’t the only thing that matters. Not even to colleges. Honestly, I didn’t have the best grades in high school… I took two years at community college to improve my transcripts and cover my required courses before I started on my degree. A prep school or community college isn’t a bad midpoint when you finish high school.” Pike nodded to him, glancing at Grog. “You’re almost done with your GED program, huh, big guy?”

“Two more math classes and an English class. They’re hard as hell, though, Pikey. But once I got my GED I’m gonna maybe… maybe start lookin’ at trade schools. Less’a the concepts and more’a the doin’ stuff part of learning,” Grog agreed, his head down and a shy smile on his lips. “I ain’t ever gonna be book smart, but I’m good with m’hands. Know my way around tools.”

“Looking towards brighter futures, planning out the steps you need to take to reach them… It’s a good place to focus. Having concrete goals, deadlines you want to meet them by, rather than something nebulous… It keeps you on track. I really suggest that all four of you get long term calendars, mark certain things that you want to have accomplished by certain dates. Being done with school, having a job in your field, starting to learn your trade. When things look hopeless, you can look at that future goal and remind yourself that you have a hope to work towards, something that’s purely for _you_ to make yourself feel complete.” Pike glanced at her clipboard, nodding. “And that about wraps up today. Vax, Percy, I’m so proud of how far both of you have come and…” Her face turned deadly serious, her voice low and threatening. “I want to miss you two every day, so never, _ever_ come back as patients. Got it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Vax nearly squeaked the words, grinning. Pike was terrifying in the best way.

“I’ll try my best,” Percy agreed, standing up and tossing his plate and fork into the trash.

* * *

There was one more Saturday picnic before they left and Vax watched Percy closely as the day approached. He seemed… fine. There was no razorblade in the room anymore, no method for him to overdose on painkillers. Vex was coming down for the picnic alone, but that was fine. He’d be home in forty-eight hours and could spend as much time as he wanted with Keyleth.

This month’s picnic was the Fireworks Festival that Pike had mentioned before, an event that took place later in the evening. Dinner instead of lunch, and at dusk they carefully passed out sparklers to the younger visitors, let them run through the yard with the brightly sparking sticks. After dark everyone gathered on the wide lawn, settled onto blankets and into chairs and watched as a fireworks display set off overhead.

Vex was between him and Percy, both of the men leaning into her, holding her hands. She’d be back Monday morning to get them, pick them up and bring them home.

Home.

Percy came with them to the front lobby to say goodbye, hugged Vex tight and kissed her forehead just as her brother had done. “Monday morning?”

“Monday morning.”

One final day in rehab.

They’d done it.

Vax climbed into bed with Percy that night, wrapped his arms tight around the other man and kissed his cheek. “If you disappoint my sister and land yourself back in here, I’m going to kick your ass.”

“Same goes for you.”

“Good.”

* * *

Sunday dragged by. There was no group therapy to fill the morning and while both of them had afternoon sessions, the anticipation of leaving had them awake and moving before the lights in the room had even come up.

Percy folded his clothes into his suitcase neatly, sorted through what he’d need to leave out for Monday morning. Vax hid a laugh behind his hand, haphazardly cramming shirts and pants into his duffle bag. “You’re just gonna have to unpack it in like a day.”

“And it won’t be all wrinkled up when I do.”

Whitestone provided bedding, sheets and pillowcases and a blanket all left on Percy’s bed. Vax had brought his own pillowcases, yanked them off the pillows now and stuffed them into the side of his bag. One night on scratchy pillows would be fine. “We’re gonna have to take you shopping, huh?”

“For some things, yeah… And I’ll have to get a job, I guess.”

“Just for your own spending money. My bastard dad pays the rent on the apartment, so don’t worry about that. For getting on your feet… Look, we invited you to stay, we’ll cover you until things settle in.” He shrugged offhandedly, zipping up his duffle bag and turning to the desk. “Ah, fuck.”

“Sudden regrets about your packing style?” Percy snickered, putting the few items on his desk into a pocket of his suitcase, leaving only his journal and a pen out.

“I will fight you physically, Freddie.”

He’d deal with it after breakfast. Taryon was already at their usual table, looking to them with bright eyes and a blatantly forced smile.

“One more day and you two are free, huh?”

“One more day,” Vax agreed, taking a sip of his coffee. He looked to Percy, saw the raised eyebrow and shrugged one shoulder in response. “Tary, we’ll get our numbers added to your contact list if you want. So you can call us and tell us all the nonsense that goes on here.”

“And up in the lounge, talk to Kynan. He’s been running table top games for a few weeks now, he’ll get you into a group,” Percy added. At least one person on the staff was apparently also a fan of table top, had secured multiple sets of polyhedral dice and sheets upon sheets of different games to play with them. Based on the equipment that had been occupying the big center table last time they’d been up there, the flavor of the week was apparently a racing game of some type.

“I will. For both of those. Thank… thank you. You guys didn’t have to be my friends, but… but I’m glad you are.” Taryon tapped his fingers on the edge of the table, looking down. “I just… I don’t know how I’m gonna get through the rest of this.”

“You’ve got Pike, and Grog, and whoever else joins your group session. Your individual counselor. Everyone here is trying to help everyone else get through it, in their own ways.” Percy rubbed Tary’s  shoulder briefly, nodding. “Things will be okay. And after you’re out of here, you can still call us. Start looking to the future.”

He looked to Percy and Vax covered a laugh with a cough, almost able to _see_ the cartoonish hearts around Tary’s head. Yeah, okay, Freddie was kind of stupidly easy to fall in love with sometimes, and he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about it, but… Head over heels, much? “I… I will. Thank you.”

There was still plenty of paperwork to fill out, exit interviews, long conversations with administration. The moment of truth, in a way, when Percy’s move in with himself and Vex would become official. Vax spun a pen in the office, signed paperwork where it was needed. He’d had his final one-on-one session with Gilmore days ago, had switched over to sessions with Kashaw in his last days in Whitestone to begin the adjustment period. The guy wasn’t like Gilmore, but Vax found him fairly easy to talk to, to get along with. They maybe didn’t have a lot in common, but as long as the guy knew his stuff Vax was fine with it.

Now he sat in a miniature group therapy session, sandwiched between Pike and Gilmore with two people from administration on the other side of the table. He answered their questions about his plans, about his support system, talked about the things that he’d learned while there and the changes he planned to make to his life at home. For the first time that he could remember, his hands didn’t shake for a cigarette to calm his nerves. Maybe it was the two beside him, maybe it was just knowing how close he was to out of here… It didn’t matter all that much. Vax spun the pen and signed the paperwork and spoke words that he knew radiated truth. He was ready to go home. He was ready to change. He was ready to live clean.

Gilmore wrapped an arm over his shoulders outside of the office, squeezing him close briefly. “I’m proud of you, you know. You’ve come so far.”

“I’m… glad to be here.” He leaned into the man for a moment, closing his eyes. “If it gets tough… I can call you, yeah?”

“Of course.”

Vax turned to Pike, looking the smaller woman up and down and grinning. “And if I mess up, you’ll kick my ass, right?”

“Metaphorically. Mostly.” She beamed, wrapping him in an unashamed hug. “You should be proud of yourself, making it so far and helping others find their path.” Pike let him go, glancing over her shoulder. “I better get to Percy’s exit interviews, now. If I don’t get new patients in the morning, I’ll come down with Grog and Tary to see you two off tomorrow.”

Vax waved to them, making his way downstairs and outside. He needed the fresh air and sunshine after such intense paperwork. The sun was warm overhead, high summer heat turning the air soupy. Bees buzzed among the flowers, the whole place seeming slow and dreamy in the early afternoon.

* * *

Something was… off about the room. Vax hesitated outside the door, his mind flashing backwards, over a month ago. He would come in and his bed would be rumpled and there would be a noise he knew too well, the gasp of pain and hiss of relief that came from cutting.

There _was_ a sound from inside the room, so expected but so unexpected, jolting him out of the paralysis of panic. The _crack_ of flesh on flesh, the sharply raised voice. “If you think you can--”

Vax shoved the door open, his gaze darting rapidly over the scene. Percy backed up to a wall, his arms half-raised in defense, his cheek reddened in a vaguely handprint shape. A woman standing in front of him, her arm lifted and her teeth clenched over words. She wheeled on him, her eyes narrowed. “Leave. This is a confidential conversation.” Delilah Briarwood, looking much less put together than the day they’d seen her giving the tour.

He didn’t even have to look to Percy to know that leaving wasn’t an option, that the other man was practically begging him to stay. Vax kept his pace sedate, crossed to his bed and propped himself up on it. “This isn’t a confidential space. Those are reserved for the therapist's offices.” He crossed his arms, one eyebrow lifting. “That’s your rule, isn’t it?”

Percy slipped along the wall towards the bathroom door, his wide eyes on Vax. Fear or gratitude, he couldn’t read it, but it didn’t much matter.

She held him with her gaze for another handful of seconds, her color rising. “I know what you are. You’ll both be back here before the end of the year. Your friends and family will give up on you and we’ll be bouncing you in and out until one day you do the world a favor and die.”

“I don’t believe in doing favors for people that don’t deserve it. I’ll stay alive just to spite people like you.” Vax grinned in the face of her anger, tapped his own cheek as she took a step towards him and Percy slipped into the bathroom. “Go ahead, darling, leave a mark on me. I dare you.” His father was a bastard, but his father also had enough pull at the state level to rip this place to shreds. Vex would make the old man do it for him.

Her gaze darted back to where Percy had been, tracked along the wall to the closed bathroom door. She turned on Vax again, her face remarkably calmer. “He’s only going to drag you down. That’s what he does. Whatever pretty lies he fed you to get into this situation, it’s going to ruin you.”

“Let it. Ruining myself gets boring after a while.”

She couldn’t see his heart pounding in his chest, about the only thing that saved him. A cool exterior over panic had rescued his ass before, would undoubtedly serve him again. Delilah Briarwood left with prim steps, shut the door to their room behind her and Vax let out an uneven breath.

“Freddie, she’s gone,” he said at the door, trying the knob and opening it gently as the weight pressed against it moved off. “Are you okay?”

“No.” Vax heard the toilet seat lift, the sounds of gagging and retching a moment later. Gross. “No,” Percy repeated, the sound echoing into the porcelain before he flushed it. The sink ran and Vax finally opened the door, stepped over and wrapped his arms around him. “No.” Percy’s face crumpled in the mirror, his fists balling at his sides.

“What happened?”

“She knows I’m not going back there.”

“And?” He turned the other man in his arms, ran a hand down his back slowly, soothingly.

“And she’s not happy about it. She said…” Percy sucked in a breath, his gaze moving to Vax’s face. “She said that if I don’t, I’ll end up dead in the streets.”

Vax kissed his forehead gently, moving a hand up and stroking his hair back. “And I say she’s wrong. I won’t let that happen to you. Vex sure as hell won’t, either.”

Percy’s head dropped to his shoulder, more of his weight falling against Vax as he exhaled, the noise caught somewhere between a sigh and a sob. “It’s… almost believable, when you say it.”

“Less than twenty-four hours and you’re rid of her, Percival. You can do this.” He felt the snort of laughter into his neck, waited for the explanation. Prepared to silence it if it was disbelieving.

“That’s the first time you’ve used my actual name when addressing me, you know.”

Vax faltered, his mind racing backwards. That was… probably true. The other man had been Freddie to him since day one, and once he gave someone a nickname it usually stuck around. He didn’t argue the assessment, just tightened his arms around Percy.

* * *

Awake bright and early Monday morning, staring across the room to Percy. Vax wrapped his arms around his pillow, watching his roommate’s fitful sleep. Vex would be waking up soon, getting in the car and driving down to get them. He’d done it.

He slipped out of bed as quietly as possible, eased his chair back from his desk and used the faint sunlight from the window to see his journal. Almost at the end, extra papers stuffed between the daily exercise sheets, notes for him, notes to himself, letters and reminders and… Vax flipped to the last blank page, exhaling slowly and looking at the prompts. He jotted in the date, tapped his pencil lightly against _mood_ before filling in _excited_.

 _A good thing that happened today: It hasn’t happened yet, but_ **_I’m going home_** _._

 _A message to someone you care about: Gilmore--thanks for sorting out my head when I sure as hell couldn’t. I don’t want to let you down, so I’m going to really_ **_really_ ** _try to keep practicing what you taught me._

_Pike--you almost made me care about a sports which means you must know literal magic. Go Lightning (that’s “my” team, right?)_

_A positive message for yourself:_ **_You have survived worse_** _. I wrote that the first day I was here, before the DTs really hit, before I had to acknowledge all my fuck-ups and all my wrong coping and all the hurt I was putting people who care about me through. I wrote that thinking that this would be awful--and it was, sometimes. Withdrawal is a bitch. I still kind of want a cigarette. Talking about all my mental hang-ups and admitting to a bunch of_ **_strangers_ ** _about how fucked up my life is and the cutting and all of that… Look, it sucked. But I have survived worse. Keyleth has passed through fire and is stronger for it and I’ve left the people who tried to kill me at the bottom of the grave they dug for me--including my old self. So it’s not that I’ve survived worse._

**_I’m a stronger person for doing this_ _._ **

Vax flipped the journal closed, tucking it and the pen into his duffle bag. He slipped into the bathroom, showering quickly and packing the last few items from there away as he got dressed. Percy was moving, slowly getting up, and Vax clapped him on the shoulder. “C’mon, Freddie. Breakfast.”

“Mmrph.”

“Yeah, I know.”

It was time to start counting in minutes. Not weeks or days or hours. Minutes until they were out of here.


	11. Chapter 11

Familiar roads.

Vax leaned back in the seat, his gaze on the world outside his window. Vex was up front with Percy, talking a mile a minute with him--had been for almost the entire drive, hours of chatter. Keyleth dozed in the back seat with him, her head heavy on his shoulder.

Familiar roads.

He nudged Keyleth awake gently as they pulled in, past the gate and to the parking lot. Everyone eased out of the car, stretching their legs and backs, breathing in fresh air.

He turned back to the building, swallowing his nerves.

It looked like a prison, the way all buildings from a certain era sort of did. He’d been locked behind its bars, forced to confront his issues head on and heal from them.

Vax found Keyleth’s hand and squeezed, gave her a tentative smile. “Are you sure you want to…”

“I’ll… I’ll be okay.”

They joined the security line, already emptying pockets and opening purses. Vex pulled Percy’s arms around her waist, her voice low and close to his ear. “Remember, you don’t have to stay.”

“Just a visit,” he agreed, squeezing her tight for a moment.

Just a visit.

They passed through security, re-gathered their miscellaneous items and followed the tide of the crowd through the lobby and outside.

Familiar places.

There was Grog, his back to them, blocking view of whoever else might have been at the table. The group crossed the yard to him, came close enough to see Taryon sitting across from him, with two others they didn’t recognize. Two more people that were getting the help they needed.

Familiar faces.

New faces.

It hadn’t been very long since he’d been the hollow-eyed one, looking distrustfully at every stranger. It hadn’t been very long since he’d been on the road to hell. Vax dropped to the table next to Taryon with a grin, ruffling up his blond hair. “Miss me, assholes?”

“No.” Grog’s petulant answer was belied by his grin, by his massive hand reaching over and clapping Vax on the shoulder hard enough to rock him in his seat. “Not a bit, ya prick.”

“Grog, be nice.” Pike’s laughter betrayed her warning as she joined them at the table, passing out cups of water. “It’s good to see you all again.”

Here he was, surrounding himself with people he cared about. People who cared about him. People who had seen him at his worst and helped him fight tooth and nail to become better. Maybe not his best, maybe not yet or maybe not ever, but… Better.

It was the best kind of family a person could have, in Vax’s own opinion.


End file.
